


Of Heroes and Myths

by thewintertrash



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Depression, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Mind Control, Pining, Stucky Big Bang 2016, nothing graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-09-05
Packaged: 2018-07-28 18:51:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 47,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7652761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewintertrash/pseuds/thewintertrash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the land where all Fairytales are true, Steve Rogers is one of the most famous Heroes. He saved the world when all hope was lost, when everyone thought it was the end, and he left his mortal body to do it. No Hero like him ever truly dies, however, as long as he is not forgotten. </p><p>And then Steve wakes up.</p><p>Now he’s thrust to a world who did not forget him, but is lost to him. He wants to live his regained years in peace, but someone is tampering with the souls of the living, turning friend into foe. Suddenly Steve is found in the thick of battle again, although this time against his will and is forced to become a Hero once more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> woo!! this is my fic for the stucky big bang, which means it has to be finished by no later than.... august 29th. i should.... i should get going on that.....
> 
> anyway
> 
> this is basically if the avengers/catws had a fairytale baby. nothing is beta'd, so all mistakes belong to me.
> 
> chapter 1 will be posted shortly. this will probably be about 25k altogether
> 
> EDIT:
> 
> [Art now attached!!!!](http://rancorousdrawer.tumblr.com/post/149660561661/but-they-didnt-tell-us-what-we-lost-of-heroes) look at this amazing artwork [@rancorousdrawer](http://rancorousdrawer.tumblr.com/) did for me on tumblr!!!!  
> 

[[art originally posted here]](http://rancorousdrawer.tumblr.com/post/149660561661/but-they-didnt-tell-us-what-we-lost-of-heroes)

When people tell the story of Captain Steven Rogers, they tell one of honor, bravery, and sacrifice. He was the Hero of the ages, defeating the evil that had swallowed the land in smoke and death, insidiously spreading its hatred that seeped into the very air we breathe. He stood up for what was right when so many were lost and afraid. He was a symbol to the nation, a True Hero of the world, his story was written in the stars like Hercules and Odysseus. Heroes in this day and age only die if people stop telling their story, and his was published far and wide so no one would forget the name — Steven Grant Rogers, Captain America.

Of course, if you were to get his true thoughts about the whole thing, he’d say it was all bullshit.

When he was Chosen, he thought it was blessing. Finally, he could fight the good fight. He could slay the beast, protect the people, right what was so terribly wrong in the world. His Fairytale was setting up to be one of the Greats, was what they said, but not in so many words. You would jinx the end if you praised the Hero too early. Folks were more superstitious in those days, you see. As they still should be. He’d completed the first two of three trials — as was the proper number for trials, although some unlucky fellows got more and there is a reason we didn’t hear about them, as they never end well — and everything was set to onto the third. He readied his shield and spoke words to his fellow men.

He told them, with this final battle, we will strike down a supreme evil.

He told them, follow my lead, for we will right the wrong in this world.

He told them, we must stand and fight, for the light must always banish the darkness.

No one, however, told him that his story had been doomed from the start. He was not acting out a Drama — he was spiraling downwards to a Tragedy.

His best friend and right hand man, Bucky Barnes, fell. Bucky knew in the beginning, was probably waiting in the afterlife to tell Steve ‘I told you so’. He’d seen through the Heroics, the fancy clothes, the fame. He knew, and Steve didn’t take him seriously, not when it mattered most.

Bucky told him, you were always great and they want to take advantage of that.

Bucky told him, this is a bloody war and war destroys good men.

Bucky told him, don’t burn yourself out just to keep the rest of the world warm.

He didn’t, however, listen to Bucky’s good advice and oh, he paid for it, dear Gods in the Heavens, did he pay. Pain beyond the burning of a thousands suns exploded in his chest as he watched Bucky fall to his death, nothing he could do except watch as the light in Steve’s world was snuffed out.

Agent Peggy Carter, dear, sweet, amazing Peggy, found him later trying to drink himself away in a bombed out pub. Bucky’s death had caused a supernova that had burst and had completely expanded in his chest, making it impossible to breathe. It was still crackling at the edges, searching out and trying to cling onto that very last scrap of hope that maybe, _maybe_ Bucky would be okay, that any minute now he’d come sauntering through the gaping hole where the door used to be.

Peggy told him, you had made your choice to stand against the injustice of this world.

Peggy told him, he had made his choice to stand with you.

Peggy told him, now you must make your choice on how to go on.

He didn’t, however, tell her that the supernova that had burst collapsed down at her words, shrunk itself to the pit of his stomach, leaving him completely hollowed out but so, so incredibly heavy. He gazed at her and imagined, just for a moment, coming home to her. Marrying her. Having a family. Trying to continue on in this cold dark world that had stolen Bucky from them.

He loved her. Gods, did he love her, he thought as he watched the icy water come closer and closer to the windshield of the Valkyrie.

They said, a symbol to the nation.

They said, a True Hero to the world.

They said, a man worthy to walk amongst the Gods.

He wanted to scream. He was never any of that, not without his best guy and girl at his side. Because everyone loved to celebrate what they won. Nobody liked to talk about what they lost.

And when Captain America woke up to a new world, one that had turned on without him and Bucky, Captain America was called on to save them. Captain America could never ignore the cry of so many people in pain, so many frightened, powerless people, so of course he went to help.

Again.

And again.

And _again._

Captain America always came and fought the good fight.

Steve Rogers always left after, weighed down by a thousand memories, unsure what the good fight was anymore.

There were many differences between what Steve presented to the world and the Captain of long sung Heroes, but there was one glaring similarity: neither had a home they could return to.

Maybe, Steve needed to learn that home wasn’t something that came to you. It was something you _made_.

Oh well. He had the rest of this story to figure that out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm [agentyrainycarter](http://agentyrainycarter.tumblr.com/)on tumblr!


	2. An Old Hero Gets a New Story (Albeit Unwillingly)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so here we go! onto the real chapter one. i'm revising my estimate of 25k... it's probably gonna be closer to 30k bc i hate myself probably.
> 
> anyway. 22 days until the deadline! off i go to finish chapter 2.

“I’m just saying, something is wrong. I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s like the whole air has shifted, like a colder wind blowing in from the north. People say it’s just superstition, but I know it’s more than that. Trust your gut, and all that.”

Steve turned to look at Colonel James Rhodes. They were attending a benefit for young magical people who had been abandoned due to misfortune, although Steve had slunk away from the crowd. They stood up on the balcony of a lavish hall, where people with money decided the fate of those who had none. Steve always hated this side of politics. It was one of the reasons he sought refuge up here, but he couldn’t deny the presence of the Colonel. For one, he _liked_ Rhodes.

“I don’t know,” Steve said, “in my opinion, not enough people believe in superstition.”

Rhodes huffed a laugh. “Yeah, well you’d be right about that.”

They stood in solidarity against the bureaucracy of overpriced champagne and monkey suits, Rhodes growing solemn next to him.

“I don’t know what’s coming, but I know it’s not good.”

Steve always felt dull dread against warnings like this, knowing he was inevitably going to be stuck ass deep in it, whatever it was, just like the last time. (And the time before that. And the time before that.) He offered the Colonel a small smile and gripped his shoulder.

“Whatever it is, you know you have me.”

“Yeah,” Rhodes agreed, but sounded like he was elsewhere. “Hey, Cap, can I ask you a question? I’d appreciate it if it stayed between us, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course. What is it?”

“Has… have you spoken to Tony lately?”

“Stark?” Steve asked with a pinch of his eyebrows. “Not for at least a few weeks, no. Is something wrong?”

“Maybe it’s nothing, but that gut feeling again, man,” he said. “Something’s not right. He’s not acting like himself. He’s barred himself away in his lab, he refuses to see to his business, nobody’s even seen him out as Iron Man recently — it’s just weird. I’m worried about him, you know?”

“Doesn’t he usually bar himself away? I mean, when I stayed there, I wouldn’t see him for days at a time sometimes.”

“This is different. Trust me.”

And Steve did, because Rhodes was the one who had been friends with Stark for the past fifteen years or so. Steve only just met him last year.

“Just… if you’re in the neighborhood, and have a chance, could you swing by and check on him? As much as he likes to believe he can get by alone, he does need other people.”

Steve felt a faint echo of another person who said that to him once.

“Of course I will. Can’t have our fame alchemist lock himself away in his tower.”

Rhodes looked a little relieved, but still had a tightness to his shoulders. “Thanks, I really appreciate it. I’m gonna visit as soon as I can, but things like this,” he nodded towards the crowd of people, “somehow keep sucking me in.”

“Yeah.”

They stood there for a moment, watching the swirls of clothing along the dance floor. Eventually they did have to rejoin the crowd, much to Steve’s chagrin, dreading mingling and enduring endless small talk. But his presence was important. Being here was more than just about his discomfort, it was about helping kids who couldn’t help who they were and what they could do. People always love to talk about Stories, about the Heroes who rose up and got their own tale, however, they usually fail to see that children like these are usually the ones that are Chosen.

So many had been forgotten since Steve died, but not his own. Part of him longed to just live the rest of his life here in peace, but here he was. _Mingling._

This wasn’t about him, he reminded himself again, and sucked it up. He passed from small group to small group, trying to keep the topic on the children and not himself or what he was planning to do with his life, since he never got his Happily Ever After. At least he’d gotten better at dodging and diverting subjects, now.

He made the excuse of getting another drink to get away from a particularly heinous group — this woman actually _laughed_ at the orphans’ plight and Steve was two seconds away from punching her before he remembered she was giving quite a sum to the cause. So he grinned and bared it because as much as he wanted to do something about it, she’d rescind her money and Steve hated this dance.

At least he had an ally in the crowd, a blonde white woman in a silvery dress. She made a smart backhanded compliment to the other woman, and her pretty dark eyes glittered in amusement when they caught his. He ducked out quickly so they wouldn’t see his own smirk.

He was stopped again on his way to the bar, to his misfortune, and as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t exactly snub the Secretary of State and the Director of SHIELD. For one, the Secretary was the one throwing the benefit in the first place.

“Captain Rogers, it’s an honor to finally meet you,” Secretary Pierce said.

Steve took the proffered hand. “Sir,” he nodded.

“Nick here and I were just discussing how grateful we are that you’re back defending the world for us again. I for one certainly sleep better at night.”

Steve felt his insides turn to stone. Alexander Pierce either didn’t notice or didn’t care about Steve’s hesitance. Nick Fury definitely noticed, his one eye good staring intently at Steve, the other hidden underneath his eye patch.

“Don’t you sleep better, Nick?” Pierce said.

“I don’t sleep,” he said flatly, making Pierce laugh.

Where Fury, tall and always dressed in black, was all no-nonsense and intimidation, Pierce was welcoming and warm. With the wrinkles in his fair skin showing his age, Pierce gave the air of someone’s grandfather. The presidential election was happening this year and Steve knew Pierce was gunning for that position and garnering the trust of the people was the key. It was Fury’s, and subsequently Steve’s, job to ensure that those whose trust couldn’t be gained are either kept under watch or dealt with directly.

Okay, so it was technically more complicated than that. But mostly Steve just felt like someone’s attack dog.

As they spoke more, Pierce turned and something caught Steve’s eye.

“What’s that?” he asked, gesturing to a pin on Pierce’s shoulder. It was a circle about as big as Steve’s palm, but so clouded with rust he couldn’t make out the markings.

“Oh, this?” Pierce said. He turned to Steve, his eyes glittering like he was sharing a private joke, but this time Steve wasn’t included. “It’s an old family heirloom. My father gave it to me. He served in the 101st, you know.”

It transfixed Steve, the urge to reach out to take it nearly overwhelming. He excused himself, not knowing where that came from.

He shook himself at the bar, estimated how long he could keep to himself before having to go back. The numbers seemed so depressing, it just compelled him to make a quick and stealthy exit rather than face the crowd again.

“What’s a nice guy like you doing in a place like this?”

Steve glanced to his left, where a thin white woman sidled up next to him. She was stunning, wearing a long aqua dress that what covered in black lace that hugged her form, the lacy swirling up along her collarbone to cover her neck and shoulders. There was a slit along her leg that came up to her mid thigh, letting Steve peek at the impressively high black heels she was wearing. Her bright red hair was delicately curled and pinned up to the back of her head, her dark makeup accentuating her bright green eyes.

He felt a little bit of the weight of being in this place fall off his shoulders just from looking at her, like this was exactly what he needed to make his night better.

“I could say the same to you,” he said.

She smiled and ducked her head a little, looking up at him through long lashes. “I didn’t know you were such a charmer, Captain.”

The cacophony of the room faded to little more than background noise and he smiled. Charming. She called him _charming._ “Perhaps you haven’t seen me in the right company.”

“Oh?” She reached up and brushed some nonexistent wrinkles out of the collar of his shirt, bringing them much closer. “And what company would that be?”

Steve’s heart rate picked up. “Company that still hasn’t introduced themselves.” He couldn’t believe he was doing this. Was he — was he actually _flirting_? That’s what this was, right?

“How rude of me,” she said and huffed out a laugh. “I’m Natalie — Natalie Rushman.”

Her name was better than all of the music he’d heard that night. He couldn’t even quite remember why he wanted to leave in the first place. How would he ever leave once Natalie was here? Just the thought of her made his insides mush to jelly.

“Steve Rogers, but something tells me you already knew that.”

“I know a few things,” she said vaguely, sizing him up before continuing. “I have an idea.” Her fingers brushed down the sleeve of his arm to touch his hand. “How about I let you dance with me, and we find out more about each other?”

The word _yes_ was on the tip of his tongue, yet it lodged behind his teeth. Natalie grabbed his hand to lead him to the dance floor but his body turned to stone and refused to move. She smiled, gently tugging his hand again in question.

_“Next Saturday, at the Stork Club.”_

_“We’ll have the band play something real slow.”_

It was like coming up from drowning. Someone had just tugged him above the waves, the noise of the benefit slamming into him all at once. He could feel her magic tugging at him, impossible to miss now that he was aware of it, the lingering taste of it sickly sweet in his mouth. He shook his head to clear the fog of its influence and scowled.

“No, thank you, I’m fine by myself,” he spat.

“Captain,” she said, holding her smile now only for show, “I have some very interesting information for you would if you grant me a moment of your time.”

“Well, Miss Rushman, you can find someone else interested in your information.”

“ _Captain Rogers_ ,” she hissed between her smiling teeth and grabbed his arm to stay him. “I have _very interesting_ information about some very _uninvited_ _visitors_ that may just make a mess. And we wouldn’t want that, now would we.”

She held out her hand and a waiter slipped a glass of champagne between her fingers right on queue.

This got his attention, at least. He studied her, trying to gage the amount of bullshit she was trying to sell him. Now that her magic was no longer clouding his mind (a nasty sort of magic, meant to beguile the unfortunate soul into doing whatever the magic user wanted), he noticed the little things — her stance was open but balanced, ready to move at a moment’s notice, the grip on his arm deceptively strong. He quickly swept his eyes around the perimeter of the ballroom. The wide-open space chock full of civilians and gaping windows made it a soldier’s worst nightmare in a battle.

“Why should I trust you?” he asked, not budging.

“I suppose that would be up to you,” she said as she sipped her glass.

Everything about her really started to drive Steve nuts. If the possibility of danger hadn’t required his attention, he’d have stomped away already. Possibly even asked her to leave the benefit altogether. He knew deep down that he couldn’t trust her.

And yet.

“Tell me what you know.”

“Maybe you should take me up on that dance first. Might give us some uninterrupted alone time that’s just so much better for such _sensitive_ matters such as this.”

He ignored the double entendre and loathed to think of the tabloids tomorrow if someone leaked that he was dancing with someone, especially someone like Rushman. He really did not want to deal with the next couple months getting hounded by questions of this mystery woman.

“Tell me what you know in the next two minutes or I walk away.”

“Relax,” she said. “I don’t know who exactly, but I know they’re after someone very powerful and very invested in politics.”

“You just named over half the people in this room.”

“Did I?” she watched the dancers for a moment, sipping her champagne again. “I know the target is male, and that he would be very hard to kill.”

That cut down the list a little at least.

“Do you mean hard to kill as in, ‘they know how to fight’ or ‘they surround themselves by people who know how to fight’?”

She hummed in thought. Steve tried to hold on to his patience. “It certainly seems to be one of the two. Or even both.”

That’s it. Steve was done with her half answers and vague information. She was just trying to get a rise out of him than actually give him anything valuable.

“You’re two minutes are up,” he said.

Her eyebrows rose slightly. “What, you don’t believe me?”

“I believe you know a lot of things and aren’t telling me what you’re really after, so unless you want to be straight with me, this conversation is through.”

She had the gall to smirk like she wasn’t bothered in the least, or even like she expected this.

“Listen, Captain,” she said, setting her glass on a nearby waiter’s tray, “I really only came here to get a look at the Hero before he embarks on his journey. Two Tales? Well, aren’t you just the lucky duck.”

She made to slide past him but he grabbed her arm.

“What do you mean by that?”

“I thought my two minutes were over.”

He glared at her, unimpressed.

“Captain,” she said again. She was patronizing him. “Believe me or not. That’s up to you. But your shield will be behind the bar for when you need it.”

His stomach sank. His shield had been in his room in the nearby hotel, which in turn was under security that rivaled the White House. He hurried over to the bar, ignoring the looks he got when he leaned bodily over to look behind it. His shield was propped up against the cabinets, the bartenders stepping around it like it wasn’t even there.

He whipped back around, but Rushman was gone. The whole process had taken about twenty seconds, but he couldn’t find her in the crowd. He didn’t want to trust her about what she said, _especially_ when she named him the Hero of a new story (but that was impossible, people were never true Heroes twice, that was unheard of), but he also couldn’t ignore the threat. Even if it was just her who was the threat.

He assessed who was in the ballroom, who would be an aid if a fight broke out and who would need to get out of here. His eyes eventually found Rhodes’, who must have read the urgency on Steve’s face for the next minute he excused himself from the small circle of conversation and made his way over. They stepped to the side where it was plenty loud enough they wouldn’t be overheard, but out of the way of the crowd.

“You looking a little tense there, Cap,” he said in way of greeting. “Everything okay?”

Steve quickly relayed everything that happened with Rushman. Rhodes hummed in thought when he was done, eyes assessing the room casually.

“There are a lot of potential targets in here,” he said. “I hope you realize that we’re also near the top of the list.”

“I’m not worried about myself,” Steve said. “Do you have the suit?”

“ ‘Do I have the suit’ — do you really think I would come to a benefit with some of the most powerful people in the U.S. without it? Statistically, this place is just some kind of accident waiting to happen. I give the signal and it’s here within thirty seconds.”

Stark, of course, had developed the armor in question about two years ago, which was heralded as the pinnacle of alchemy and science the world has seen so far. It certainly said something about their relationship if Stark trusted Rhodes with it, no questions asked. Still, thirty seconds was a long time for things to go wrong in the battlefield. This whole thing left Steve unsettled and wrong footed.

“I don’t like this. I don’t trust her, but she did grab my shield. As far as warnings go, that is pretty clear.”

“Yeah, this whole thing stinks. Hey, let me make a quick call to JARVIS. I can get him to compare the list of who’s invited and who’s actually here.”

Steve nodded. JARVIS was developed, again by Stark, and was the first truly functional AI in the world. Steve had his own opinions about technology versus alchemy and how both were used in this day and age, but he couldn’t begrudge them in times like this.

“Let me know,” Steve said before squaring his shoulders and heading back into the crowd.

Mingling was bad enough on its own. Mingling while on edge waiting for an attack that may or may not even come had to be its own circle of Hell.

In the end, they weren’t subtle about it.

Thirty-six (painful, excruciating) minutes after Rushman’s warning, an explosion ripped through the tall windows, sending glass and people flying. Screams and yells echoed in the large room as Steve tore through the chaos, trying to get people out of harm’s way. He hadn’t had time to grab his shield behind the bar, although he saw the glint of metal as Rhode’s War Machine suit flew in, the man itself jumping into it.

“Captain!” someone yelled. He turned, seeing the woman in the silver dress from before holding his shield a just before she threw it at him. He had a split second to wonder if she knew Rushman before catching the shield, shedding his suit jacket, and getting to work.

Six gunmen came in through the windows and Rhodes flew up to greet them. Steve took one out before leaving him to it, instead sprinting ahead of the people flooding through the exits. This attack seemed expertly planned for maximum chaos, and he suspected there were more men waiting to pounce on whoever escaped the halls.

The hotel security had split into two groups — those not assisting the guests were fighting their own. Anyone with a gun aimed at a party dress was quickly taken down before Steve could really consider the consequences of so many double agents in such a high profile event.

The fight was too easy. _Diversion_ thrummed through Steve’s body as he sprinted back to the main hall, just in time to vault over a piano and slam his shield into a mage who was aiming straight at Pepper Potts.

Happy, Pepper’s security guard, came shambling over a moment later, blood running down one side of his face and his tux ripped open.

“Pepper, come with me,” he puffed.

“Happy! You’re hurt!”

“Go,” Steve ordered. “Rhodes will come find you after.”

Pepper nodded, the shock of events leaving her unsure of what to do. “Tony. I’m gonna try calling Tony again.”

“Come on,” Happy said, grabbing her and throwing up a small force field to shield her from stray bullets.

Steve stayed long enough to see them to the door before coming back to the center of the fight. Rhodes was having a hell of a time trying to both take down the gunmen and battle mystics (which the number had tripled in the sixty or so seconds Steve had been gone) and defend the scattered partygoers, although help from private security had come.

Fury had taken refuge behind some pillars, his gun out and firing at the men. Secretary Pierce huddled behind him.

These men, both with magic and without, while good shots, were weak when it came to close range fighting and were no match for Steve’s skill. They made up for that in sheer numbers and backing them into an indefensible corner. Fortunately, more private security came to their aid, knocking out a good chunk of them.

A scuffle came out over by the pillars and at first glance it looked like Fury was dragging Pierce away from a threat, but as Steve ran that way he realized that the two men were fighting over something instead. Steve decked one of the last remaining gunman in the chest hard enough to break his ribs while keeping an eye on Fury and Pierce, who Fury had pushed away forcefully.

A hush fell over the room, then, and Steve glanced around quickly to make sure none of the enemy men were going to get up after the fight. They barely had time to breathe before three shots came through the gaping windows and hit their mark — Director Fury’s chest.

Steve was over in an instant, dragging his bleeding body by the arm back under the cover of the pillars. Rhodes covered Pierce, moving him and the rest of the crew away from the windows.

Steve bent over Fury, who held onto Steve’s arm.

“We need to get you to the—”

“SHIELD’s been compromised,” Fury spat out. “SHIELD — they did — _ah_ —”

The pain cut him off, but Steve understood him loud and clear.

“Don’t—” he coughed up blood while he spoke, “trust — anyone.”

He opened his palm and there was the Secretary’s pin, the one he had gotten from his father. Hesitantly, yet at the same time unable to stop himself, Steve took the pin.

A bright white light blinded Steve as something pierced through his chest, throwing him backwards. He gasped for air as he landed hard on the ground, the shock sent through his body paralyzing him as his chest caved in from the impact, ribs breaking apart.

“Rogers! We need to get out of here,” a voice said, hauling him bodily up.

“Shot,” he coughed, stumbling into the redheaded woman due to the pain and clutching his chest, “I’ve been _shot_.”

“You’re fine,” Rushman said as his brain finally caught up with who was next to him.

He stared at her incredulously — even with his accelerated healing he could still potentially die from a gunshot wound to the chest, just from organ and tissue damage if not from the blood loss. He took his hand away to show her just how much blood, only to stare at his clean hand.

He stopped dead in the middle of the hall, patting down his chest. His white dress shirt, besides being a little dirty, was blood free and completely intact. No bullet wounds or cracked ribs. _I’m hallucinating,_ Steve thought wildly, though the pain lodged just next to his heart still felt horribly, startlingly real.

“Does anyone have eyes on the shooter?” the blonde woman in the silver dress called to them as she ran past to Fury. Fury, who had three very real bullet wounds to the chest and was currently bleeding out on the floor.

“Tell them I’m in pursuit,” Steve said without really thinking, ignoring Rushman’s protest.

And he burst through the halls, his lungs unable to breathe properly despite his insistence that nothing was wrong with him. It felt like an asthma attack, the pain that seeped through his bones and into his very core choked him. He caught sight of the shooter and swallowed his pain down, pushing himself to move faster.

Tearing through an office building, he finally caught up with the shooter just before he turned and started shooting again.

Even while running across rooftops, his aim was impeccable and he was _fast._ If Steve hadn’t had superhuman reflexes, he’d be dead, no two ways about it.

He swerved and ducked, moving closer, counting the bullets. There would be a split second where the man would either have to change guns or magazines, and Steve would be able to strike.

Except the bullets _didn’t_ stop. He counted thirty, thirty-five, there was no way a gun would have that many — Steve was going to have to take a chance.

He threw his shield hard, hard enough that when the shooter caught in his left hand, he slid back several feet. Steve leapt over the small glass planes on the roof, a bullet nicking his side in the process. The shooter hurled the shield back and only narrowly missed as Steve twisted away in midair. He landed and kicked the gun out of the shooter’s hand.

Steve pulled back for a punch and threw his fist through empty air. The force of his follow through propelled him forward and into the space the shooter had been an instant before.

Steve stumbled to a stop, looking around wildly for the shooter, but he was alone on the rooftop. He ran to the edge of the building, breathing hard and irregularly, gazing out over the Washington DC skyline. The shooter must have some transporting magic ability, or some sort of ability using portals. Even shrouding magic couldn’t hide someone so completely, since the person remained solid and Steve’s aim was true.

He stood on the roof for a few minutes trying to catch his breath. The wound on his side had already stopped bleeding, although his chest still felt like it had taken the full force of his shield. The shock of before finally faded into background noise, and his mind worked overtime fill in what exactly just happened.

He needed to speak to Rushman. She knew about this attack, had warned him for some reason about it and he needed to know why. The double agents in the hotel probably didn’t know this shooter, or Rushman for that matter, but they would know who hired them. He would be able to work up from there to see who was really pulling the strings, and who, out of all the people who wanted Fury dead, had made this attempt on his life.

But he had to go to the hospital first. He needed to make sure Fury was all right.

With that in mind and with his breathing finally calming down, he yanked his shield out of the brick wall it was lodged in and headed back towards the ruined benefit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm agentrainycarter on tumblr!!


	3. In Which Steve Makes Some Questionable Decisions But They Turn Out Okay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the final length of this thing just keeps being pushed farther and farther back. new estimate is around 35k. and to think i though this was gonna be 15-20k at first
> 
> (fake laugh hiding real pain)
> 
> anyway. this is gonna have at least six, maybe seven chapters. it depends how long chapter five is and whether or not it would be easier to split it, plus the epilogue. speaking of which, the deadline's in 16 days......... i should get writing

It was a long night, between the cleanup and the endless questions. Rhodes helped him oversee the mystics and gunmen loaded up into police vans, a lot of which belonged to hotel security. He and Rhodes shared a look. This was probably far from over.

Rushman disappeared again, although part oh him thought he’d hallucinated her return altogether. The woman in the silver dress (Agent 13 with SHIELD special forces, he learned) had gone with Fury to the hospital.

He found Pepper Potts over by Happy, who was being treated by some EMTs. At first glance, she seemed all right but shaken. He went to spare a word with her.

“Steve,” she said, her voice too grateful for him to bear as she went to give him a hug. “Thank you so much, you saved my life. _Our_ — our lives.”

“Luckily I was in the right place at the right time.” He nodded to Happy. “Are you both all right?”

He gave Steve a thumbs-up while he winced as the healer knit his skin back together.

“We’ll be fine,” Pepper said. “Are you all right? Rhodey said you might have gotten — oh my God you’re bleeding.”

“I’m fine,” he assured her. “It’s just a small scratch, it’s already stopped bleeding.” He needed to get away from her honest eyes and warm hands on his arm. It didn’t help that his chest still felt like it had been caved in, even though there was nothing to show for it. Like everything, he just had to wait for it to pass. He took a deep breath. “Listen—”

“Have you talked to Tony?” she cut in anxiously. “I’m sorry, I just…” She breathed in deep and let it out slowly. “It has been a _very_ long night and I’m a little — overwhelmed. Of course, I should be used to this by now by how often Tony gets up to this sort of thing but I’m _not_ and I can’t get ahold of Tony and I’m afraid I’m not very sure what I should do next, and that is not something I am used to feeling, I _assure_ you.”

Steve took a moment to dissect the paragraph, though he grasped for anything comforting to say. “Is Tony busy with the suit?”

“JARVIS says he’s in the Tower which means he is _intentionally_ ignoring my calls,” she said, tapping her fingers on her phone with more force than necessary. “I have left him six voicemails! Why won’t he call me back?!” she cried, turning helplessly to Happy.

“Has this been going on for a while?” Steve asked. “Rhodes said that he was worried about Tony shutting himself away.”

“Rhodey said that?” She thought for a moment. “I don’t know — I-I guess it started a few weeks ago? Oh God you must think that I’m overreacting, that I’m just some clingy girlfriend, but Tony wouldn’t ignore me like this, especially if I were in any danger, he just _wouldn’t._ ”

Steve put a hand on her shoulder and assured her, “I don’t think you’re overreacting. It has been a long night, though. Happy, you okay with getting her out of here?”

“Yeah, I’ll definitely be feelin’ this in the morning, but no concussion, just a lot of blood. Head wounds’ll do that to you.”

“Okay.” Steve pursed his lips. _Stark, what the hell are you doing,_ he thought as he watched Pepper visibly pulled herself together.

“It was good seeing you, though, Steve. I’m just sorry that it wasn’t in better circumstances,” she said.

“Hey, listen, when I talked to Rhodes earlier,” he said, not sure where he was going with this, “he asked me to stop by the Tower and check on Tony. I promised him I would.”

Well, ‘promise’ might have been a strong word, but Steve couldn’t regret it when Pepper looked so hopeful.

“You will?”

“Yeah,” Steve nodded. “I have plans to go to New York soon—” (no he didn’t) “—so I’ll stop by and check up on him—” (he didn’t actually want to do that) “—and maybe knock some sense into him—“ (he might have wanted to that last part a little bit) “—he shouldn’t be worrying you like this.”

She gave him a watery smile and that alone was worth dealing with Stark. “I appreciate it, I really do.”

He said his goodbyes, leaving her in Happy’s hands and returned to his post. The pre-dawn light filled the sky before everything was finished and he could escape to the hospital, only to find Fury’s cooling corpse on a gurney, Agent 13 by his side.

He was too late. And his death was probably his fault.

Somewhere Steve was aware that he should feel worse, that he should be doing something other than quietly accepting Fury’s death, but he was too goddamn exhausted. The serum let him run on very little sleep, but this was into his bones. He was too weary, too heavy, to feel anything besides abject numbness.

His boss was dead and all Steve could focus on was that part of him was _envious_ of Fury.

The rest of Steve realized that this, actually, was pretty fucked up, and tried to refocus his energies. This only led him back to other corpses he’s seen over the years, which did the opposite of what he intended. He purposefully breathed in and out slowly, walking into the room.

With the bloodied corpse.

He shook himself mentally. There was nothing he could do, nor not much he could have done differently. He hadn’t known who the real target was, there was no way to really _prepare_ for what had happened. If only he had made his way to Fury’s side sooner. If only he hadn’t let his guard down. If only he had stretched out his hand a little farther, all this new body yet he still couldn’t reach Bucky when he needed Steve most, if only he hadn’t let Bucky down, let Bucky fall to his death, if only he had let go too, if only he had joined him down in the icy river valley—

He had to get out of there.

Steve walked out of the room, out of the hospital without any real thought to where he was going. The thick trees hid most of the sunrise, but Steve wasn’t paying any real attention to it anyway, running over the past night event’s obsessively, thinking of every little thing he could have done differently to have prevented this. He realized he wasn’t being very inconspicuous, still in his dirty suit with a bloodied rip in his shirt and his shield still on his back, but there was hardly a soul out at this time. In the quiet it was hard to believe any of this had happened.

The pain in his chest echoed through his body and he couldn’t help but check again that he hadn’t sustained any wounds. There was nothing there, of _course_ nothing was there, nothing was ever there, no matter how heartbreakingly real it felt. What _were_ real were Fury’s death and the traitors within the hotel security and the fact that everything in this night had been meticulously planned.

He turned on his heel. He couldn’t run away anymore.

He made his way back to the hospital, noticing a major increase in unmarked SUVs and SHIELD personnel. Steve walked past them, trying to hide his unease. Fury’s last words played back to him, and he wondered how much of it was true, and how deep of shit they were truly in. He needed to talk to Rhodes again. And find Rushman.

“Captain Rogers!”

He turned, watching as Brock Rumlow and the rest of the STRIKE team came up to him. Rumlow saluted.

“Secretary Pierce is here, Cap. Says he wants a word.”

“Okay,” he said, because what else was he supposed to say? He didn’t actually want to return to the hospital, to sit by Fury’s corpse.

Then again, Pierce was one of the last people to see Fury alive, and they had been in a fight. He glanced between the STRIKE team, a team he had once led and trusted, who was now bracketing his sides and back.

The hairs on the back of his neck rose. And yet here he was, walking into the wolf’s den.

“Captain Rogers,” Pierce said once Steve passed through the seven layers of security and into a private office in the hospital. He grasped Steve’s hand. “I cannot begin to express my gratitude at your bravery tonight.”

Steve bit back mentioning that Rhodes or the other private security involved in the fight were just as brave, if not more so. It wasn’t really the time or place to discuss.

“Of course, sir,” he said instead.

“I rushed here as fast as I could. Poor Nick.” Pierce closed his eyes, placing a hand on his chest. “I almost can’t believe it. I thought Nick would be able to survive anything. But I guess three bullets to this chest will take out just about anybody.”

He paused and glanced at Steve, like he was considering if three bullets would take even Captain America out. Steve hoped never to test that.

“He saved my life, you know,” he continued. “Just before. He pushed me out of the way of the bullets, and for that, I will be forever grateful.”

Regardless of the fact that the last action done by Fury was getting in a fight with Pierce, it would have been impossible to see those bullets coming without super speed the likes of Quicksilver, let alone react quick enough to push someone else out of the way. Steve thought better of correcting him. “It was — noble of him,” he forced out. Pierce didn’t acknowledge the sentiment.

“Captain, I saw him speaking with you, before I was pulled out of there. I need to know what he said. It could be important in catching whoever killed him.”

“I… I don’t know if it’ll help,” Steve said, trying to buy a little time to figure out how he was going to get out of this. He was getting too nervous. He took a deep breath. “All he said was ‘don’t trust anyone.’ ”

Pierce’s eyes turned cold and calculating. “I wonder if that included himself.”

“I’m not sure. I’m sorry. Those were his last words.”

“Then maybe you could help me with his last action. I saw him give you my family heirloom. What happened to it?”

That threw Steve for a moment — he’d nearly forgotten about it. “I don’t know. I remember seeing it, but then it was gone. It must have gotten lost in the chaos.”

That was… not _quite_ a lie. He’d been too distracted by the crushing pain in his chest to worry about what happened to that rusty pin. He met Pierce’s eye, and for a moment he saw something ugly flash behind them before he schooled himself.

“Captain, this attack endangered some very important people and killed my friend — at _my_ benefit. Whoever is behind this made this incredibly personal to me. I don’t care who gets in my way, I will find out who did this. And I mean anyone.”

As far as threats go, it wasn’t exactly subtle.

“Understood,” Steve said. There was a breathe of silence while they sized each other up. “Excuse me.”

Steve walked out of the room and out of the hospital, meaning to get on his motorcycle and get out of the immediate area. He meant to, at least, until he saw Natalie Rushman leaning against an expensive black sports car.

Anger ripped through him and he stalked up to her, preparing to rip her a new one. He swallowed down that impulse at once, since he still remained hyperaware of the eyes on him by the numerous SHIELD agents still prowling around the grounds. Several of them were high-class mages, one of which had a chimera alongside them. Steve wouldn’t be surprised if there were elementals prowling around too, which to the outsider looking in, it might seem reasonable. After all, there was just a huge attack on the Secretary at his own banquet. Heightened security wouldn’t be given a second thought.

However to Steve, who had lived far too long in battle, it looked to like he was gearing for war. Yelling at someone who had even a modicum of an idea about what was going on wasn’t going to get him anywhere.

So he cooled his anger and walked up to Rushman like a normal person going about his normal day. Normally.

“I don’t believe I’m welcome here, anymore,” he said in way of greeting and scanned the area for snipers. “How about I take you up on your offer and we get to know each other better?”

She popped her gum. No longer was she in the flashy dress of the evening, but in jeans and a warm jacket. Her hair was down just past her shoulders, mostly hidden underneath her hood. He could just make out the shape of her eyes behind her dark sunglasses.

“Why, Rogers,” she said, giving him a small smirk, “I thought you’d never ask.”

She tossed keys at him. “You can drive.” Steve opened the driver’s side door, letting her climb through first and into the passenger seat.

Steve, who had done the same thing for Bucky so often during the war, didn’t bat an eyelash. You see, it’s one thing to mask your presence, but if you started moving objects around, people were going to realize that something, or some _one_ , was making it move. And that got people killed.

Getting in a car with a stranger he wouldn’t even trust with a coffee order, let alone to help escape SHIELD, was an absolutely terrible idea. Sure, he’d be driving, but to where? New York?

Then again, what choice did he really have? Rushman might not have helped with fending off the attack itself, but she had warned him that it was coming, for the amount of good it did. She had slipped through security to grab him his shield. Getting into a small car to an unknown destination sure made more sense than staying here, anyway.

So he got into the car. After adjusting the seat so his knees didn’t hit the steering wheel, he took off.

“Where are we going?” he ask. He’d been driving for about ten minutes with no direction in mind.

“Figuring that out’s the fun part, don’t you know?” she said. She opened the glove department and pulled out a map and some runes.

She tossed them once, frowned, then tossed them again. “They’re telling us to stay in DC.”

“And you trust them?”

“They haven’t steered me wrong before,” she answered cautiously.

“And which way would that be?”

Steve couldn’t read runes, never could. That had been Monty’s job, back during the war. Morita had been their radio tech and field medic and Frenchie, aka Dernier, had been a very enthusiastic pyrokinetic. Jones had learned some Hoodoo from his grandma, and damn hadn’t that saved their lives a few times. Just a little bit of extra luck here, a well placed curse there, with potions made with anything and everyone he could find. Bucky, though, had had a more subtle affinity with magic. He could do small things, like fix a gun so it never jammed or run out of bullets. He could shroud himself in shadows and silence his footsteps, melting past people who never noticed his presence, which was unbelievably useful in battle.

Dum Dum couldn’t do a lick of magic, although neither could Steve, despite the magic transformation that had been done to him. Dum Dum’s saving grace was his six years in the military and was full of battle experience, while Steve was still fresh off the entertainment circuit. Bucky used to say it was a damn good thing Steve was so pretty, otherwise they’d have kicked him off the team.

“Right now, in the direction of a safe place,” Rushman said, bringing him back to the present. “Turn left up here.”

“Are you going to tell me exactly where we’re going?”

“Only the runes know that, Rogers. Although I may ask them in exchange for information about the shooter.”

Steve cut her a sidelong glance, but acquiesced.

“He was strong. Fast. He had affinity over guns, so he never ran out of bullets. Had a metal arm.”

She whipped her head to look at him.

“And at the end of the fight, he disappeared.”

“A metal arm,” Rushman repeated softly. Steve glanced at her again, at the sudden realization on her face.

Maybe it said something about the day (days?) Steve was having, but nothing could go right. No sooner had he opened his mouth to question her before his car spun out, one of his back tires blown.

Steve didn’t think, just slammed on the gas and cut around the car ahead. That had definitely not been an accident and he did not want to meet whoever shot at them.

“Did you notice anyone following us?” he asked, swerving to dodge a car turning right. Rushman’s runes had disappeared and two guns were now in her hands, head swiveling around.

“No,” she answered, and that was what he was afraid of.

His other back tire blew, the steering wheel jerking and jumping in his iron grip, but Steve didn’t slow down, not until a roadblock appeared out of nowhere in front of him through fog. He slammed on the brakes, the back end of the car swerving to the left as he pulled right as he narrowly missed the barrier.

A dozen SHIELD agents, along with his STRIKE team, all armed to the teeth, quickly circled the vehicle. A helicopter roared overhead. Even if they managed to escape the barricade, there was no way they’d outrun that helicopter.

“Captain Rogers! Stand down and exit the vehicle slowly!” shouted Rumlow, automatic rifle held high.

Rumlow didn’t have magic either, but he made up for it in pure ruthlessness.

“Don’t look at me,” Rushman said. “Don’t acknowledge my presence. They don’t know I’m here.”

He could sense it now, the magic gathered to hide herself. Completely disappearing was trickier than sliding beyond someone’s consciousness, and acknowledging that something was there would dispel the magic. Either she might help him, or she was going to hide out until they had taken him away. The latter seemed way more likely, but he had to take a chance if they were going to get out of this.

“What should I do,” he murmured, barely moving his lips.

“CAPTAIN ROGERS!”

“How many of them can you take at once?”

“Get out of the car with your _hands up_!”

“Comfortably about six or seven. I don’t know what they can do yet.”

“That’ll have to do. Get out. I’ll get out after you and take out the ones on the outside.”

“What’s the signal?”

“ _Captain Rogers!_ ” Rumlow called again, his finger moving to the trigger.

“They’ll drop. Now get out before he shoots us.”

Steve did as she said, getting out of the car slowly with his hands up. He stepped away from the door, but left it wide open. He could see one of the deflated tires now. It had been punctured by an arrow.

“Rumlow,” Steve greeted. He felt the slightest touch of Rushman’s finger against his neck, letting him know that she was out of the car. He needed to buy time for her. “And here I thought we were friends.”

He scoffed. “Oh please, Cap, we both knew we were never really friends. Especially not since your actions lead to the death of the Director.”

“Is that what they told you?”

The agent on his nine o’clock had a large bag with her, which Steve suspected was filled with water. Having an elemental on their side made Steve and Rushman’s escape that much harder.

“Doesn’t matter what I believe. All I know is that you’re gonna get what you deserve. Now, come quietly Captain, or you’ll get a bullet in your chest just like Fury.”

“On what grounds am I being arrested? Part of my rights to know why.”

“It’s also part of your rights to shut up!” Rumlow snapped as he held up a hand, making sure his teammates stayed in position while he stalked up to Steve, rifle still held high. “Get on your knees!”

 _Where was Rushman now?_ he thought, glancing back and forth between those surrounding him. The suspected elemental had her hand over the opening tip of her bag by her waist, ready to strike.

An arrow whizzed overhead, all eyes following it as Rushman caught it right before it hit her in the chest. It dispelled the magic hiding her presence, as she stood right next to one of the guards, ready to strike.

“Hawkeye?!” she said in disbelief just before the arrow exploded into a net and trapped her.

“I don’t think so, Natasha,” a man in purple said as he jumped down from the helicopter over head via a grappling hook.

The net wrapped close around her body, making her lose her balance. Two of the guards lifted up as she struggled. “What are you _doing_?! They are the ones who killed Fury, stop this!”

“I follow orders,” Hawkeye said.

Steve spurred into action. He took advantage of the momentary diversion to dip around Rumlow’s rifle and disarm him. He spun out of the way to dodge the elemental’s water whip and sank low to take out another gunman’s knees with a well-aimed kick.

Rushman thrashed in her captive’s grip, striking one in the face with a hidden knife in her boot. Blood spurted out as the gunman dropped her legs.

“Well, I _order_ you to cut your crap and take down these double agents!” she said, crouching down before leaping back and head-butting the other gunman so hard he bit his tongue and stumbled away, blood pouring out his mouth.

“I follow orders,” he said again notching an arrow, “but not your orders.”

Steve’s shield was in the car still, doing a load of good for him as bullets sliced the air inches from his flesh. He kept his body in constant motion, spinning and diving and zigzagging around the men to keep his chances of being hit somewhere fatal as low as possible.

Rushman — Natasha? — even in ropes made capturing her difficult. She wiggled her wrists around so she could aim electric darts into two of the gunmen’s unprotected necks. A knife appeared in one hand, which she used along with the one in her boot to start cutting the net in two places, but it wasn’t going to be enough. They were still outnumbered 17 to 2, one of which was in a net, against twelve expertly trained gunman, three mages, one elemental, and one bowman.

“ _Clint Barton_ ,” she snapped, rolling behind the car for cover, “stop helping these traitors or I’m gonna make you regret it.”

Steve was being as big of a distraction as he could to give Rushman enough time to get free, but he had his hands full trying to dodge magical blasts and that water whip. Keeping in the center of them made them more cautious, lest they take one of their own down with friendly fire, but he knew the odds. Their chance of this going well was low before Rushman was netted, but now it was nearly impossible.

Well, he’d worked with less before. He wasn’t going to back down now.

He knew the STRIKE team well enough to know how to exploit their weaknesses, but the others were wildcards, especially with that bowman, who Rushman definitely knew personally.

Steve could almost see a win for them, before the elemental wrapped Rushman up in the water, leaving only her face free.

“ _Freeze_ , Cap! Or she drowns where she stands!” Rumlow shouted. Steve hesitated too long for the elemental, and the water crept towards her mouth and nose.

Steve dropped his fighting stance slowly and put his hands up. Trust her or not, he was not going to be the reason she drowned to death.

“Hawkeye — I _know_ you. Stop helping them!”

Rumlow ran over to Steve from behind, shouting at him to get on his knees, kicking the back of his knee when he didn’t go down fast enough. Steve could see little movements of Rushman, who was still furiously slicing through the netting.

“I have my orders,” Hawkeye said, notching another arrow and aiming it straight at Steve’s head. “My orders are to kill Captain America and the Black Widow at all costs.”

Steve tried to hide his surprise. _Black Widow?_

“You idiot!” she seethed. “We’re trying to find out who killed Fury! You know this isn’t right, why are you listening to them?!”

“Shut her up,” Rumlow said and nudged the end of his rifle against Steve’s head. “Are you gonna do it or you gonna let me have the honors?”

Steve watched as the water closed over Rushman/Black Widow’s nose and mouth. Steve new he had mere seconds to think of a contingency plan, or they were both going to end up dead in the middle of the road.

Whoever Hawkeye was, he was important to Rushman. Rushman knew him, claimed he wasn’t acting like he should. His brain couldn’t help but connect this to Tony and Pepper — what was going on? Could he trust Rushman’s reaction? It was the most emotional he’d seen, the most raw. It was possible that Hawkeye was under some magical enchantment if what she said were true.

“It’s my orders to kill Captain America. You’re on standby for containment,” Hawkeye said as he pulled back the arrow. “One shot and it’s all over. You won’t even feel a thing.”

He didn’t know Hawkeye, but he was out of time and out of ideas. His first instinct was to order Hawkeye around, of _course_ Steve’s opinion was right and Hawkeye should just listen, but he didn’t think it was going to work that way. So Steve shoved that impulse down and, like always, took a huge risk.

“But you will,” Steve blurted. “I think she’s right, Hawkeye. This isn’t you. So why are you doing this?”

“I follow orders.”

“Quit listening to him!” Rumlow said. “Shoot him and be done with it!”

“You have your orders,” Steve said, forcing himself to look Hawkeye in the eye instead of at the tip of the arrow. “But you always have the choice in whether or not to follow them.”

“I don’t have a choice.”

“Yes, you do!”

“I have my orders, Cap.”

“ _Shoot_ him! Or I swear to God, it will not be pretty.”

“You always have a choice, Hawkeye. You can kill me now. Or,” Steve paused, not risking it to glance over at Rushman. If Hawkeye was going to let loose that arrow, he was going to look Steve in the eye while doing it. “Or, you can join us. To find out who really killed Fury. You know this is wrong, Hawkeye, I know you do. And I know that you’ll do the right thing. I believe in you.”

Rumlow knocked Steve in the head hard with his gun. “You better fucking shoot him now, or—”

“It’s not the easy choice!” Steve cut in again and took another blow to the head for his impertinence. “But it’s yours to make, and only yours.”

Rumlow stepped on Steve’s head, forcing him to bow. “That’s the last straw, Cap.”

Steve looked up as much as he could over at Rushman, who was staring at him like he was crazy. She’d spent just over two minutes in there so far, and he knew most people could hold their breath for up to three minutes before passing out, but if this didn’t work, that wouldn’t matter. There were still ten of their enemies who hadn’t been taken out, including the elemental and Hawkeye.

 _“Fight,”_ Rushman mouthed at him. The net had been cut. Steve just needed to take out the elemental and free her, and they might just have a chance.

“You have your orders,” Rumlow said, “so fucking follow them already!”

“I do have my orders,” Hawkeye agreed, “but they’re shit orders.”

He loosed the arrow and pierced Rumlow in the shoulder. No sooner than he had done so than something struck him hard in the foot, sweeping him off his feet and landing him hard on the pavement.

Steve sprung up and launched himself over the car and at the elemental, who had not expected this turn of events, or expected 220 pounds of super-soldier to barrel straight at her. Steve took advantage of having her attention divided and soon the water coffin spilled out onto the pavement as he forced her to focus on him. Rushman didn’t miss a beat, soaked to the bone but landing calmly on her feet before springing into action.

Hawkeye, still on the ground but not down for the count, loosed arrow after arrow into the remaining gunmen. Rushman covered him where he couldn’t, which left Steve alone to fight off this angry elemental.

Or until the helicopter started spilling rounds down on the scene, regardless of the friendly fire that might have occurred.

“I got it!” Hawkeye yelled. Steve wondered for a split second how he expected an arrow to take down a helicopter before three hit their mark and exploded, blowing off the tail and the blades. The helicopter swerved and crashed, sending debris everywhere.

Steve channeled all his anger and irritation about the night and Fury’s death into a last few strikes with the elemental, throwing her through a wall in the process. He turned and ran back towards the car, where the only two still conscious were Rushman and Hawkeye. Rushman was helping him to his feet as he came up to them.

“We need to get out of here,” he said, digging his shield out of the back seat of their trashed car. “You good?”

“In the head, finally, yeah,” he grimaced as Rushman leaned him against the car so she could take out her own bag, very pale and looking ill. “The body, not so much. Think I fucking broke my ankle — _ow._ ”

He locked eyes with Rushman who nodded and said, “I know a place.”

Steve came to Hawkeye’s other side and they rushed off.

~*~

“Where did Captain America learn to steal a car?”

He glanced at the redheaded woman beside him. They were in a truck Steve had hotwired out of a nearby grocery store parking lot after they hightailed it away from the scene.

“That’s privileged information. Only people who tell me their real names get to know that.”

“Clint Barton!” Hawkeye immediately piped up from where he was spread out in the back seat. “My full name is Clinton Francis Barton and I will absolutely divulge… most information about myself to know that story.”

“Well?” he nodded towards the woman next to him.

“I will tell him if you don’t.”

“You know I’d kill you.”

“Worth it to know why Captain America knows how to hotwire a car.”

She sighed lightly. “Natasha Romanoff, codename Black Widow. I work, well, _worked,_ for SHIELD and Fury. Names have power. You understand why I’m reluctant to give it.”

“Barton, that true?”

“Yes. Story?”

“I was in Nazi Germany. Now how much farther?”

“That’s it?”

“Should be right around that corner.”

“I’ve already taken this turn twice.”

“That can’t be it.”

“There may be an enchantment on the place, preventing visitors.”

Steve cast her a sidelong look. “And this is supposed to be a good hideout?”

“Theoretically, if we can find it. Stop off in that plaza. I’ll ask around.”

“ _We’ll_ ask around.”

“ _You’ll_ just attract attention. Don’t worry that pretty head of yours and stay with Clint, I’ll be right back.”

Steve watched her slide out of the car, leaving the seat damp. Barton eased himself up so he could look at Steve over the seat.

“So.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be in a lot of pain?”

“Oh I am, trust me,” he said. From this close Steve could see the sweat on his brow and the deep bags under his eyes. “The talking helps distract me. So. Nazi Germany?”

“It’s really not that interesting. It wasn’t exactly included in basic, but a few of the guys passed along that knowledge, in case you ever needed to get outta somewhere as fast as possible. Most of the people who knew it where actually women, since they were often drivers.”

“See! That’s interesting. _Fuck._ You know what? I’m just gonna fuckin’ — _ungh_ — take these boots off. Please don’t get into another fight while I don’t have shoes on. Done it before, got a piece of glass in my foot. I don’t suggest — _argh_ — there we go!” A pause. “The hell is this?”

Steve glanced back at the tiny rusted piece of something that he’d apparently pulled out of his boot. Steve snatched it out of Barton’s hand before he even realized what he was doing, smoothing over it gently with his hand.

It was a little bigger than a quarter and about as thick, with one edge curved and the others sharp and angled. He held it so preciously, gently smoothing over the flakey and rough sides with his thumb, like the simple action could brush away all the dirt and rust.

“Do you know what it is?” Barton asked and Steve startled.

“What? Uh, no, I don’t,” he said.

“Okay… well, we can we can ask Natasha when she comes back,” he said and gestured through the window where she was heading back to the car.

“Okay but also,” he continued haltingly. “I mean, it’s just. Ah, God, you know…” he rubbed his head, ruffling his blond hair. “Thanks, for what you said out there. I guess I can’t really,” he huffed a laugh and cleared his throat. “I looked up to you, you know? I mean I guess everyone does, but it was nice as an orphan kid to see someone succeed despite that. And I mean, c’mon, it’s not every day _Captain America_ tells you he believes in you.”

“I’m glad I could help,” Steve said, tearing his eyes away from the fragment to look straight at Barton.

“Yeah, well.” He glanced back outside. Romanoff was nearly at the car door. “Couldn’t really let you down after that. So whatever happens, I want you to know that I’m in it now. Fuck those guys.”

“We’re fucking who now?” Romanoff asked as she slid back into the car.

“Whoever we’re going to go beg for a safe house as a thank you. Or a payment. I’m not particular.”

“What did you find out?” Steve asked and ignored Barton.

“The guy’s name is Sam Wilson. He’s a healer, or he used to be. Apparently he’s turned into a, and I’m quoting here, ‘a giant fuckfaced titpilot who’s got a spiky dildo up his ass’ and doesn’t help anyone anymore. He used to work part-time down at the VA, but he’s just up and abandoned everyone there. Not, of course, before he caused a scene that ended in a fight and broken furniture.”

“Let me guess,” Steve said, now seeing a pattern, “this happened a few weeks ago, this is completely out of the ordinary for him, and he’s pushing everyone he cares about away.”

Romanoff met his side-eye. “Looks like you got it all figured out, Captain.”

Steve sighed and turned the engine on. If only.

~*~

They found the house eventually. Even though they knew the address, they still managed to pass it another three times. Steve would be impressed if he wasn’t so irritated at the whole situation and running on no sleep. He just needed to get this over with.

They pulled over to the side of the road and got out, Romanoff still soaking wet and Barton still barefoot. Barton put on a brave face, sure, but that pain couldn’t be easy to manage.

“I expected uh, more of a, well, ‘house,’ part of the ‘safe house,’ ” Barton said and gestured to the lovely if unkempt garden in front of them.

“He’s used some heavy concealment charms,” Romanoff said to point out the obvious to Barton. “He really does not want any visitors.”

Even across the street Steve could feel the warning coming off in waves. It was more effective than any keep out signs to the point where it actually made you slightly nauseas. He watched as people unconsciously crossed the street away from the garden and birds even altered their paths overhead. If someone wanted to shun the world and tell everyone to fuck off, this would be a great way to do it.

In the midst of trepidation and nausea growing as they stood across from the garden, Steve could recognize they were stalling. Well, it’s not like Steve ever did anything in halves, and they were sitting ducks out here. He crossed the street, Romanoff helping Barton limp along behind him.

The barrier itself was less solid and more a general feeling of unease that grew with each step. A cold sweat started down Steve’s neck and he felt like something was breathing just over his shoulder, making him jumpy and anxious. He knew it was just the magic making him feel this way, but this wasn’t the sort of magic that dispelled once acknowledged. Barton and Romanoff weren’t doing much better, he thought, when he glanced back at their pale faces. Barton was muttering reassurances under his breath and Romanoff had clenched her jaw, hand unconsciously gripping the gun on her hip.

Passing through the gate of the garden was like trudging through the carnage of a recent battle. The magic of the barrier tasted like something spicy had spoiled in the back of his mouth and he heard Barton gag. The air sizzled ahead and suddenly a tall tower sprung into view, which had a skinny base and a large bulbous head about thirty yards up.

It was covered in siding and the occasional warped window with the front door still in place, like someone had taken a house and just twisted it into a new shape. Between the concealment charms, the barrier, and the transfiguration of a building this large, a truly impressive amount of magic went into this. It wouldn’t have surprised Steve if multiple people helped in creating this, or else the sorcerer would have to be incredibly strong.

Steve touched his shield on his back and knew it wasn’t just the magic that was making him uneasy.

“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair?” Barton called hopefully.

“Listen, we don’t know who or what we’re going to meet up there,” Steve said, glancing back at his two companions, “I’ll go up alone. Romanoff, you stay with Barton. If things go sour, you get yourselves out of here.”

“A Hero shouldn’t go off on his own, that never ends well,” Romanoff said. “Barton can manage himself.”

“Uh, no offence, but not gonna happen,” Barton said. “I’m coming with.”

“What, now that you don’t have to follow orders anymore you’re not going to listen to anyone?”

He looked at her. “Free will is a hell of a drug.”

Steve assessed both of them. “Well, I’m not carrying you,” he said finally.

Barton grinned. “Got that covered.” He pulled out an arrow and fired it just next to the highest window, a rope trailing behind it. He tugged twice to make sure it held strong, then opened his other arm for Romanoff to hold onto him.

Steve sighed inwardly. “We’re not going to ring the front door first?”

Romanoff arched an eyebrow and stepped behind Barton to wrap her arms around his neck. “Do you think he’s going to answer?”

“Last one’s there’s a rotten egg!” Barton called cheekily as the rope pulled both of them upward.

The danger was no joke, no matter how Barton was acting, and he wasn’t about to let an injured soldier take point. With one jump he reached midway up the tower and pushed off a window to take him to the top room, passing the two as he did so. He moved his shield to his arm before prying the window open and peeking inside. He didn’t see any movement, the whole place dark and quiet, so he slipped inside. Romanoff climbed through next, helping Barton through.

A gun clicked. “What are you doing in my house?”

Steve turned and held up his shield, to see a black man in workout clothes. Steve knew, suddenly and intrinsically, that he hated this man.

“Jesus, what crawled up your ass and died?” Barton said before Steve could get a word out. “Obviously I need help. Now do me a favor and help me.”

The man — Sam Wilson, presumably — raised his eyebrows. “You break into my house and expect me to just go out of my way and help you? Fuck off, man.”

“I might be literally dying from these injuries. You just gonna let me die? The fuck is wrong with you?”

“Get out before I help the injuries win.”

“You wouldn’t—”

Wilson fired and Steve barely managed to block it before it landed between Barton’s eyes. He swallowed down the sudden and incredible disgust he had for Wilson and spoke to him.

“I know that we broke in,” Steve said, “but we really do need your help. Put the gun down and just hear us out.”

“I ain’t gotta do shit.”

“Well, seeing as you can’t even clean up after yourself, that much is obvious,” Romanoff said. “First time my runes ever steered me wrong.”

Steve never took his eyes off of Wilson, but let himself take in his peripheral vision. The room wasn’t completely dark, not with the light streaming from the window, but he could see the trash bags huddling in the kitchen, the piles of dirty dishes in the sink, the dust floating in the air like this was the first time the windows had been open in a long time. The air smelled stale from stagnation and the garbage odor wafted throughout the room. Takeout boxes littered the coffee table and floor along with more dishes, old food left out and flies buzzing around.

It was a few good weeks worth of filth, probably starting around the time when his personality changed. When he gave Barton a choice, Barton took it. Orders bounced right off him, because he had no free will to disobey. If Sam Wilson was acting like this when being asked for help, then—

“Okay, then don’t help us,” Steve said. He pushed against everything that was telling him not to help this guy, to just fuck him and leave. This was more important, _Wilson_ was more important.

“Cap, I don’t know if you noticed, but I do actually—”

“Let us help you instead,” Steve stepped forward, headless of the gun. “We can help. _I_ can help.”

“Man, I don’t need your help. I’m doing fine on my own.”

“Yeah, right,” Romanoff muttered behind him.

“Okay,” Steve agreed and ignored them. He walked up to Wilson slowly. “You don’t need our help. But I’ll still offer it. I’ll still give it. You don’t even have to ask.”

_“We’ll put the couch cushions on the floor like we were kids.”_

Wilson hesitated and Steve took his chance. He reached out to gently take the gun out of Wilson’s hands, who let go willingly.

“Go and rest. I got this. You don’t have to take this burden on by yourself.”

Wilson swallowed and nodded a little. “Okay,” he agreed. “Thank you.”

Steve started to smile before something crashed into Wilson, sending him flying backwards into a wall. The rest jumped into action. Steve looked around wildly for whatever came at him, as Romanoff and Barton dove behind the couch. But Steve had no idea what had hit Wilson; they were away from the windows and there were no bullet holes in the walls.

Wilson groaned in pain. “My _hand_ , Jesus _Christ_ , I think my hand’s broken!”

Steve kneeled down by Wilson’s side with his shield still out. Wilson pulled up his right hand, but there were no injuries. He opened his fist and flexed his fingers, and even though he grimaced, there nothing was wrong with him. In fact, nothing was different except a little piece of rusted metal that fell out of his palm, which, besides the sharp triangle cut out of one side, was almost identical to the one Barton had pulled out of his shoe.

Steve grabbed it and both he and Wilson looked at it curiously. Then what just happened dawned on Wilson.

“Oh my God, I just pointed a gun at Captain America’s head,” he said, eyes widening in horror. “I am _so sorry,_ oh my _God.”_

“Okay, but you actually shot at me!” Barton piped up helpfully. “Don’t I get an apology?”

“I’m so sorry, man, I don’t know what was wrong with me. Listen, I’m so—”

“It’s alright,” Barton shrugged. “I get that feeling. Said some shit too, so, my bad.”

“C’mon,” Steve said and helped Wilson up, who swayed where he stood.

“Whoa,” he said, and had to hold on to Steve to stay steady. “I don’t think I’ve eaten in like, a while.”

“You got any food?”

“I can’t remember the last time I bought groceries so uh, probably nothing edible.” He turned, surveying his home like he was seeing it for the first time. “Shit,” he remarked. “This place is a _dump_.”

“You should see Clint’s apartment,” Romanoff said.

“I resent that.”

Wilson had turned pale and broke out in a cold sweat. He and Barton were now competing now about who felt and looked shittier, although Wilson was winning at this point. He needed a shower.

Steve started making executive decisions. Wilson (“Jesus, just call me Sam”) was obviously in no condition to try and heal Barton, who wasn’t dying, thank you very much, so he made Sam and Barton (“Clint’s fine, Cap, no need to be so formal”) sit down and get some rest. It was too early for lunch, only about nine in the morning (“ _only_ nine? I feel like I’ve aged ten years”), so Steve ordered enough breakfast food for a small army while he puttered around the kitchen. He kept having to (sometimes physically) force Sam to sit back down, since now he was overcome with guilt at the horror of having not just a guest, but “Captain _goddamn_ America” clean up his filth and kept apologizing for the state of his house.

His protests were weak however, since his body, after weeks of neglect and who knew what else, didn’t lend him much strength. Clint could do little more than curl around the armrest in pain, although the medicine Sam had given them helped. Sam had lent Steve some clean clothes and he and Romanoff (“Well if they’re going to be on a first name basis we might as well all be, _Steve_ ”) spent some time cleaning up in the bathroom. Eventually Natasha made herself useful by braving the barrier and concealment charms and picking up the food, which startled the delivery guy when she appeared from thin air.

They ate mostly in silence, everyone scarfing down their pancakes and eggs like it was the last time they would ever have to eat again, and let the exhaustion fall over them now that they finally had a chance to rest. Even Natasha looked drained and that confirmed Steve’s assumption that she’d had about as much sleep as he had.

Sleeping arrangements were met with much protest, since there were only two beds and a couch and everyone felt like they had to stay up and discuss the mess they were in.

“We’re all exhausted. We’re not gonna be any use in trying to figure out what’s going on. Once we’ve all had a little sleep, we’ll come look at it again with fresh eyes.”

“All right, _mom,_ ” Clint said. Steve glared at him.

Eventually it was decided (or rather, Steve decided) that Sam would get his own bed and Clint and Natasha would share the guest bed (“But what if she slits my throat while I sleep?” “We’ve slept in the same room before. You let me stay at your apartment all the time.” “Yeah but what if _this_ time—”) and Steve would get the couch.

Sam let Clint have the bathroom first while Steve guided Sam down to his room.

Sam’s room wasn’t any better than the rest of the house, which was covered in dirty laundry and more takeout boxes. Steve spent fifteen minutes gathering the boxes into a new trash bag and tore off the sheets despite more of Sam’s protests. Steve shooed him out of the room to go wash up in the bathroom, now that Clint had finished and collapsed on the bed in the guestroom.

He paused when he took down clean sheets from Sam’s closet, revealing the carefully folded American flag and a photo of a much younger, healthier looking Sam next to a blond man. They were laughing.

Steve closed the closet doors, knowing he’d just breached Sam’s privacy, and quickly made the bed with military precision. He kicked the dirty laundry out of the way so he could reach the window and threw it open to let fresh air in.

When Sam came back fifteen minutes later, freshly showered and in clean clothes, he swatted the laundry basket out of Steve’s hand.

“I am thirty-one goddamn years old, I am _not_ letting another grown-ass man do my laundry.”

Sam fell asleep mere moments after his head hit the pillow. Steve backed away and quietly closed the door behind him. Clint and Natasha, despite both of their protests, were fast asleep when Steve walked by the bedroom door, Clint face down and taking up two-thirds of the bed and Natasha curled away on the remaining third. He softly shut that door as well, and sat down hard on the couch.

Sleep pulled at him, but something stopped his eyes from closing. He pulled out the two strange rusted metal pieces from earlier and held them in his hands. He smoothed over the surfaces, cradling these fragments, and wondered what they could be. Clint and Sam seemed completely surprised at finding these fragments, and it still didn’t explain what had thrown Sam against a wall. In fact, Clint had been hit too, but none of the gunmen around them had fired. His ankle wasn’t even broken, despite his words.

And maybe it was his imagination, but the fragment from Clint’s boot seemed a little less rusted than before, especially compared to Sam’s piece. When he put them together for comparison, the straight edges smoothed over and stuck together leaving the curve along the outside. They were connected like they were always meant to be together.

So, it was magic. But what kind? What had happened to Sam and Clint?

This cyclical thinking would get him nowhere, but he couldn’t sleep. Instead he threw himself into cleaning every inch of the living room and kitchen, going so far as to wash the dishes by hand so the dishwasher wouldn’t wake anyone up. He gathered the garbage, and with little else to do with it, tossed it out the window to be dealt with later. The only thing he couldn’t do was vacuum, but at that point his eyes were so tired and his body so heavy, and could barely keep his eyes open.

It was barely one in the afternoon, and Steve had been up for almost thirty-six hours now. He’d gone longer, pushed himself harder, and had vague thoughts of doing a perimeter check, but instead he fell onto the couch and let the exhaustion pull him under.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm agentrainycarter on tumblr!!!


	4. Why Can't We Be Friends?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright, so it's crunch time fellas. also i'm currently 26k into this with no signs of slowing down. and i wonder why i hate myself.
> 
> anyway, since i've had lest time to edit this than usual, i apologize for any errors. maybe i should invest in one of those fancy betas

Steve startled awake to soft footsteps a few hours later. It was just Sam, shuffling in from down the hallway. His shoulders fell when he noticed Steve had woken up.

“Sorry man, I was trying to be quiet.”

Steve shrugged the apology off and sat up, rubbing at his eyes.

“Did you clean my _entire_ house?” Sam said incredulously. He leaned on the wall for support as he made his way to the kitchen. “You even did the dishes! C’mon, man.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” he explained, and resided himself to being awake. “And you know what they say about idle hands.”

Sam stared at him. “I’m so glad my mama ain’t here right now. She’d beat my ass for letting my guest do all the work.”

“How’re you feeing?” Steve asked.

“Like shit,” he replied frankly, accepting the abrupt subject change. He rustled in his cupboards and started gathering herbs. “Although I do feel a little less like death now that I’ve showered and slept.”

Steve offered to help, but Sam would have none of it and made him sit down and the table. Steve filled him in on everything that happened since the banquet, but they left really discussing any sort of plans or theorizing what was happening until Clint and Natasha woke up. Eventually Sam set a mug of tea in front of Steve before settling into the chair opposite.

“That’ll rejuvenate you. I know how shitty it is to run on so little sleep. Trust me, your body with thank me for that.”

The taste left something to be desired, but Sam wasn’t wrong. Just a few sips in and Steve already felt better.

After a few minutes of silence, Sam broke it. “I know you saw it. The folded flag in my closet,” he added on when he saw Steve’s confused look, which quickly turned guilty. “Look, it’s okay, I’m not mad that you saw. I mean we’ve all got those feelings. Guilt… regret…”

“Who was he?” Steve asked quietly.

“My wingman. Riley. We were in the 58th unit together — para-rescue. It’s been a few years since he passed, but after that and two tours… I guess I just had a real hard time finding a reason for being over there, you know?”

“I’m sorry,” Steve said, knowing it was inadequate.

“It’s okay,” Sam replied and seemed to mean it. “It’s okay because I had something to come home to. My mom, my brothers and sisters and all their kids, it certainly made things easier knowing I wasn’t alone, that if I had some sort of trouble I could always go to them. It’s half the reason I continued being a healer after I got back. Just because I was going through a rough time didn’t mean I couldn’t help others through theirs.”

“Are you happy now? Where you are?”

“You mean am I happy being my own boss? _Hell_ yeah,” he said and they smiled. “I couldn’t imagine, though, getting here on my own. Or if I woke up someday and everyone I knew was gone or about to be.”

Steve suddenly found his tea mug very interesting. He tried to pull up the rehearsed answers he always gave the press whenever questions about the new century came up.

“Oh, you know, it’s not so bad… polio’s gone, that’s great, food delivery is probably the best thing that’s been invented, and the internet — you know, so helpful.”

Sam’s dark brown eyes stared right through his bullshit, but he had the decency to not call him out on it. Eventually Natasha wandered out of the room and they decided it was time to order more food, figuring they’d wake Clint up when it got there.

There was no need, since fifteen minutes later Clint burst into the living room.

“They set me up! They were gonna frame me for killing Captain America!”

After a moment of confused silence, Clint continued heatedly, “Those bastards _know_ I’ve got a rep for not following orders exactly or stepping around them and finding loopholes. Perfect example here.” He gestured to Natasha.

“Back when I used my skills for… less welcome parties, Clint was ordered to take me out. He made a different call.”

“What?” Clint asked. “Oh shit — hold on,” he said before turning back to his room.

Sam sort of shrugged and heated up more tea.

“I’m assuming Nat told you!” Clint called. They heard some rustling before he burst into the living room again, this time shoving a hearing aid into his ear. “And you know what? I made a good call letting her live! But these fuckers, their orders were to ‘contain and arrest’ and to everyone else it would look like I’d made my own call and blame the whole thing on me. No matter if I wasn’t under my own control or not, like anyone’d believe me. Fuck, if Cap hadn’t broken me out of it, I’d probably just have gone along with the sentencing. If I even got that far.”

“It’s because it made you a threat,” Steve suddenly realized. “If they let you act on your own, they knew you’d never go along with arresting me, let alone trying to take me out, since you’d want to know what really happened to Fury.”

“They made it so I’d never question bad orders. Damn those sneaky bastards.” Clint plopped down into the empty fourth chair around Sam’s kitchen table. Clint at least looked better than he had before he slept and since a little more color returned to his skin. “Did we order food yet?”

“Enough Chinese food to feed eight people,” Sam promised. “And while I don’t know what’s wrong with us, that tea will help your symptoms when it’s ready.”

“You’re a literal angel.”

“So where does Sam fit into this?” Natasha asked. “No offense, but you’re not the greatest threat right now. Why go after you?”

“He was a para-rescue,” Steve cut in. “If someone with those skills were nearby, surely they’d try to step in if they saw something bad happening.”

“Nah, see, but Natasha’s got a point,” Sam said. “I’m not active duty. I don’t have any of my equipment. Sure I’ve got my handgun — sorry, Clint, again — but I wouldn’t be a lot of help against fully loaded SHIELD agents.”

“It’s because you _could_ be a threat,” Clint said. “Because if you did have your equipment, you would be a threat to their plans.”

“So they targeted me because I’m a ‘potential’ threat? That is some next level conspiracy shit.”

Natasha and Steve looked at each other sharply, both coming to the same conclusion.

“If they’ve already gone after potential threats, who knows how many people they’ve targeted that pose immediate threats to their plans,” Steve said.

“We may have a government-wide brainwashing epidemic on our hands, boys,” said Natasha. “If they’ve managed to get to Clint, then there’s a huge laundry list of other potential targets who A — wouldn’t agree with what they’re planning and B — have skills to interfere with those plans.”

“Okay but what plans? How are they targeting people? And who’s ‘they’?” Sam asked. “Who in SHIELD would be powerful and influential enough to pull this off?”

“Pierce,” Steve said. “He’s a part of the World Security Council, he controls the STRIKE team, plus the fact that Fury was shot at the banquet he hosted…” Steve trailed off as the light bulb went off over his head. He dug into his pocket.

“What?” Sam asked.

He held the fragmented piece of rusted metal up. “I know what this is. Well, not exactly, but I know it was a pin that belonged to Pierce. He was wearing it the night of the banquet.”

“That thing?” Natasha asked. “Wasn’t it in two pieces before?”

“It connected back together,” Steve said. “Before Fury was shot, he and Pierce were fighting. Then afterwards Fury tried to give it to me. But as soon as I touched it, there was a bright light and it sort of… disappeared.”

“That certainly sounds like a Hero’s calling to me,” Natasha said.

“Hero?” Clint’s eyebrows flew up his forehead. “Can’t be. Steve’s already had a Story.”

Steve sighed heavily. “Unfortunately, I believe Natasha might be right.”

“Well shit,” Clint said. “Hey! But at least you’re two trials in already. Only one more to go.”

“I don’t think this one’s only gonna be three trials,” Sam said slowly. “That thing’s missing to many pieces.”

“No way. Stories only have three trials. That’s like, the rule or something.”

“Not always.”

Everyone was staring at Steve, who was staring down at the partial pin in his hand.

“But then… how many—”

“Seven,” Natasha cut in. “See? If that’s supposed to be a circle, then there would have to be six pieces to complete it, and then the star in the center.”

Now that she said it, it was easy to envision the sharp point of a star in the missing triangle. Knowing what was on the center of his shield left little room to argue against Steve’s Heroship.

Steve held the piece between his fingers delicately, trying to ignore the ominous silence that had befallen the room. It had definitely gotten less rusted, he concluded, although he didn’t know why. He could almost see the original color. Grey, maybe?

“Well, hey, maybe you’ll get a new shot at a Happily Ever After,” Clint added in to break the tension. “My bet’s on Sam.”

“Whoa, hey now.”

“Careful though, Clint’s the one saying he’d sleep with you as a thank you for letting us stay here,” Natasha teased.

“Or as payment. I’m not picky.”

Sam held his hands up. “Not saying you’re bad looking, but _definitely_ not necessary.”

“Tell me about the shooter,” Steve said to bring them back on topic. “Natasha, you know something.”

“Yeah, although I don’t know how much it’ll help, seeing as he doesn’t exist.”

“Jeez, Cap, who’d you run into?”

“The Winter Soldier.”

Clint whipped his head to look at Natasha. “You’re kidding me.”

Sam and Steve were alike in their confusion.

“I met who?”

“A myth,” Clint said dismissively. “This guy doesn’t really exist, most of the intelligence community doesn’t believe so, anyway.”

“The ones that do call him the Winter Solider,” Natasha said. “He’s credited with over two dozen assassinations in the past sixty years.”

“So he’s a ghost story,” Steve said.

“Well,” Clint said, glancing at Natasha. “They story goes is that he’s a beast of winter, brought to life so snuff out the lives of others. They say his body was carved out of the middle of a vast, empty tundra, that his skin is ice cold and just his touch alone can bring about frostbite. He has a metal arm and guns that he never needs to reload and is quick and merciless as a deep icy river. He’s as elusive as an artic breeze and no one he’s sent to kill ever even sees him coming, since no one’s a better assassin than death itself.”

“Steve, you described a man who’s incredibly fast, strong, has an affinity over guns, and has a metal arm. And at the end of the fight, he disappeared into thin air.”

“Well, shit,” Clint remarked.

“Sixty years, though?” Sam asked. “Steve, how old did this guy look to you?”

“I don’t know. It was hard to tell with his mask on.”

“Well, let’s say he started killed in his twenties—”

“I started way younger.”

“Okay, but it’d take time to build up his rep and his skills, even if he did start younger. So this man at twenty in, what, the 1950’s? Is now, sixty years later, able to keep up with a supersoldier. There’s not many people who could do that into their eighties. Or seventies, if we’re being generous.”

“Steve’s technically ninety-five,” Clint pointed out.

“Yeah, but he missed about seventy of those years. I’m just saying, I’m not sure how much I buy this Winter Soldier myth.”

“Says you and about 99% of the intelligence community.”

“Even so,” Natasha cut in, “going after him is a dead end. We should concentrate on the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ of Pierce’s plan.”

Their conversation was put on hold when their food was delivered. Natasha went to climb out of the window again, much to Sam’s confusion, who asked why she didn’t just use the front door. When he opened the front door to show the ground, this led to confusion for the other three, since last they checked, the living room was about thirty yards above the front door. Apparently that was only visible from the outside, they figured out, and the door was just in two places as once. “I hate magic,” Clint whined, as what happened to his house offended Sam so much at it nearly had him speechless.

After they laid out their frankly impressive amount of food, they got back to business.

“The ‘why’s gotta be power,” Steve continued from around a bite of eggroll. “The presidential election is coming up. If he could secure that position atop one of the most powerful countries in the world… that’s a lot of damage he could do.”

“The House and Senate are currently democrat controlled, though,” Sam reasoned. “For him to be able to implement that damage, he’d do better with them being controlled by the Republicans. Or rather, in this case, literally control them.”

“To what end?” Clint asked. “I dunno, but if I were evil and the power to manipulate and control people on such a large scale, then I wouldn’t just stop at the U.S. I mean, we’re great and all, but what if you were able to get your hands on everything?”

“Whatever he’s doing, he has to have help. There’s no way Pierce would be able to launch something this massive by himself.”

“Or for that matter, ruin a man’s house.”

“Sam, we’ll get you’re house back to normal.”

“No, that’s not what I meant. I didn’t transform my house. I didn’t put up the concealment charms or the barrier. I mean, I wouldn’t even have the power or the knowledge how to do so even if I wanted to.

“So who did?”

“Wouldn’t I like to know,” Sam muttered darkly.

“What about whoever put the enchantment on you?” Natasha asked. “Do you remember who it was?”

Sam and Clint’s recounts were inconclusive at best and worthless at worst. Sam insisted that he saw a flash of green while Clint swore he saw something blue, and while Sam thought he remembered someone laughing, no amount of Natasha’s insistent questioning could bring much more to light. Neither of them could remember specifically when it happened either, although they were able to make a pretty reliable guess.

Both remarked how terrible it was, going back to normal. Besides feeling like they were experiencing the worst flu of their life, it was that they didn’t notice anything was different. They couldn’t fight back against the control because they hadn’t realized they were being controlled in the first place.

“I feel like I need to take fifteen showers before I can be clean again,” Clint said and shuddered.

“Oh my god,” Sam said and put a hand over his mouth in abject horror. “I have to go apologize to everyone at the VA. Unfortunately I remember that occurrence perfectly.”

“We need more intel,” Steve said. “Finding out those being controlled might be doable one at a time, but that’d take months at least. We need to do some kind of wide scale search of behavioral patterns. If we could figure out who’s being controlled, then those not being controlled would either be complacent in Pierce’s plan or a part of it.”

“That’s a lot of manpower,” Clint said.

“Maybe not,” Natasha said. “Not if we can get ahold of Pierce’s private files.”

“Then the real question is how three of the most wanted people in DC sneak up on one of the most heavily guarded persons in the world right now.”

“The answer is, you don’t,” Sam said and got up from his chair to retrieve a file.

It turned out to be his personal file, detailing his extensive work as a para-rescue. Most interestingly was what, exactly he used as a para-rescue.

Clint whistled. “ _Damn_ that’s a nice set of wings.”

“I can’t ask you to do this, Sam,” Steve said and shook his head. “You have everything you want, everything that you built up here. I won’t ask you to leave.”

“Except you’re not asking. I’ve kinda been forced into this, whether I like it or not. Besides, _Captain America_ needs my help. I wouldn’t say no even if I wanted to.”

“And you’ll get revenge on whoever messed with your house.”

Sam pointed at Clint. “This one gets me. No one messes with a man’s house and gets away with it.”

“Where can we get our hands on these?” Steve asked.

“The last pair is in Fort Meade, behind three guarded gates and a ten inch steal wall.”

Steve looked at Natasha, who shrugged. “Shouldn’t be a problem.”

“As freaking awesome as these are, these aren’t exactly made for stealth. How’re we supposed to sneak in with these? Security around Pierce is going to be unbelievable, let alone hacking into his personal SHIELD datebase,” Clint pointed out.

“I could get through,” she said.

“They’ll be expecting you though.”

“Clint’s right,” Steve agreed. “Your concealing magic is only good if they are unfamiliar with you. If the STRIKE team’s with him, it won’t work as well.”

“How else are we supposed to access the files?”

“Is there a way we could do it remotely?” Sam asked.

“Possibly,” Natasha considered, frowning. “We don’t have the equipment here though.”

“No, but I know someone who does,” Steve said. “And I owe someone else a favor.”

He shut Sam’s file decisively.

“I think it’s time we visit Tony Stark.”

~*~

They waited until well after dark, after everyone had rested more. Sam felt well enough to really check Clint over, and it fascinated Steve to watch his hands glow a warm orange over Clint’s body. Except for the part where Sam couldn’t find anything wrong with him. His body was perfectly healthy and there was no apparent cause for Clint’s symptoms. That left Clint flabbergasted, but Sam just quietly suggested that it wasn’t the body that was sick. No one really knew what that meant, since Sam couldn’t figure out what had caused his sickness if he was already healed.

They took Sam’s car and leave the truck about twenty miles away. (Sam made fun of Steve for leaving an apology note, but he liked to think of himself as not a _total_ asshole.) They detoured up to Fort Meade, and let Natasha infiltrate while Clint found high ground and kept watch.

“Are you sure about her?” Sam had asked. “I dunno about you, but something about her just seems… off. It’s my guess she knows more than she’s letting on.”

Steve just sort of shrugged. “What choice do we have?” he answered, and they left it at that.

They stayed off major cities and highways, taking the scenic route up through Virginia and into Pennsylvania. They pulled off the turnpike around the state border into a town that had about two thousand people at most and stuffed themselves at twenty-four hour Wendy’s in companionable silence. Well, mostly silence.

Clint burst out laughing, snorting into his Frosty, startling everyone in the Wendy’s, which at this time of night included them, three truckers and the two employees behind the counter. It took a good two minutes before he calmed down enough to speak.

“Sorry it’s just—” he interrupted himself with giggles. “The sorcerer had put the Falcon in a _bird cage._ ”

Sam kicked him hard in the shin. It didn’t stop his wheezing laughter.

They continued onward, going almost as far north as Hershey before rounding out back to New York City. It added about three hours to their trip, but Steve didn’t mind driving. It was good to have his mind focus on something other than what was happening.

At least they knew what to expect by this point. Stark was going to be some sort of total asshole and try to attack them. Theorizing what kind of asshole was something they could agree on, figuring it had something to do with his overblown ego. Trying to convince him to be humble, however, was what they were unsure on. If (when) he did attack, it was going to be four on one, but they would also be in Stark’s home base. Who knew what kind of tech and magic would be waiting for them there.

Getting to Stark Tower was easy enough, since even though New York is never really empty, it was still dark out and before rush hour. Getting inside was a different story. Steve’s code and ID still let him pass through the front door, but something was wrong.

It was a ghost town. No one was behind the desk, there was no security milling around the entrances, even the lights were dim. It instantly had Steve on guard, which caused his team to tense.

Steve cautiously crossed the front entranceway, his shield up in front of his body.

“JARVIS?” he called. Something squeezed his stomach when he got no answer. “This must have just happened. JARVIS was working at the banquet last night.”

“There wasn’t a fight,” Natasha said. “Nothing’s out of place. This must be Stark’s doing.”

“Okay,” Sam said. “Let’s assume that Stark just… gave everyone a vacation. Do we have reason to believe he’s even still here?”

“Rhodes said that Stark had holed himself away in his tower. If he’s become a recluse like you had, then I have no reason to believe he’d had left too.”

“Then where in this giant one-hundred floor skyscraper would he be?”

“The top three floors?” Steve guessed. “That’s where his labs and sleeping quarters are. We’ll start there then work our way down.”

“Hey, if Sam was Rapunzel, who’s Stark? Sleeping Beauty?”

“While I take personal offence at being named after lettuce, Sleeping Beauty does seem to fit Stark.”

“Yeah, except if he is Sleeping Beauty, where’s the dragon?” Natasha asked.

No one had an answer. The eerie silence of the Tower pressed down onto them, and everyone gripped their weapons tighter.

Clint had offered blessings to several Gods when they found out the elevators still worked. Again, Steve’s passcode allowed them to access the very top of the tower. Natasha and Clint readied their guns and arrows respectively while Steve took point with his shield. Sam would burst out after them if necessary, his wings posing enough of a distraction to allow Steve to go forth unobstructed.

They cleared the top floor, where the entertainment lounge and his home were. Steve presumed he’d be tinkering in his labs, which were the on the floor below. They took the stairs this time, Steve and Natasha going down the northeast stairwell and Sam and Clint taking the southwest.

And he wasn’t wrong. They found Stark working, alone, in his expansive lab, surrounded by a dozen pods. Steve held up his hand to his team, making sure no one struck unless it was in defense. Clint found high ground as Sam worked his way towards Stark’s left, Natasha going towards his right. Steve approached from his front.

“Hey, Stark.”

The man in question jumped about a foot in the air, so assured at his isolation that he hadn’t paid attention to his surroundings.

Surprise bled away to contempt. “ _Captain_ ,” he spit out. “You weren’t invited to this party.”

A dozen nasty retorts came forth in his mind, but he bit them back down, more than familiar by now at how this magic worked. “Just came by to see how you’re doing.”

Which was not well by the looks of it. He had deep bags under his eyes, his hair a greasy mess and his usual meticulous facial hair overgrown and shaggy. The lab was littered with empty coffee mugs and dirty dishes and Stark probably hadn’t changed his clothes in a few days.

He scoffed. “Yeah, _right._ What do you want? You know what, I don’t care. You and your ‘ _pals_ ’ can get the hell out of my lab.”

“Stark—”

Fast as lightning, a glove of his suit appeared on his arm and fired a repulser blast straight at Steve’s head. Except Steve knew this was going to happen, his shield up in time to block it. He held up his hand for his team to hold fire.

“I don’t care. I want you gone, and I’m not about to play nice about it.”

“Is that where everybody else is? Gone?”

“ _I don’t need them_!” Stark exploded. “I never needed them! I don’t know why it took me so long to see, but they were in my way! You know what? Good riddance. They did nothing but hinder my genius.”

“Maybe you should take it down a peg,” Steve cautioned. “We don’t want a fight here. We just want to talk.”

Stark glowered. “Nothing you could say could even remotely interest me.”

“Stark, I know we’re not that close, but I know that you’re isolating yourself. You do need people! No matter how big your ego is, you can’t do anything by yourself.”

“Yep, I was right. Not interested. JARVIS, House Party Protocol. Get them out of my lab.”

The eyes of twelve different Iron Man suits shone through the pods as the glass cases pulled open. Stark raised his other hand the rest of his armor flew in, covering his body. The helmet was last, pulling down over his face, and Steve cursed internally. They had been so certain it was Stark’s ego that was holding him back, but if that wasn’t it, what was it?

“You don’t wanna do this,” Steve warned.

“Yeah, actually, I really do.”

The suits flew and ran out of their own accord after Sam, Natasha, and Clint. Stark headed straight at Steve who blocked his punch with his shield. It was only the start of the pandemonium.

They knew going into this that they were fighting on Stark’s home turf, but there were twelve thousand percent more Iron Man suits than they were expecting. It was everything they could do to dodge in these tight quarters, let alone trying to fight back. At least the suits manned by JARVIS were only interested in detaining, not harming.

Stark didn’t prescribe to that and came at Steve with everything he had, headless of destroying his own space to do it.

Steve ducked and weaved around the repulser blasts and other missiles, glass and tech taking the hits instead. He must be losing it, because he let himself be backed into a corner by the floor to ceiling windows. Stark hit the shield headlong with a blast and Steve braced himself as the heat and power cascaded around him.

“Stark! This isn’t you! You wouldn’t fight your friends — you wouldn’t abandon the people you—” Steve cut himself off and cursed.

“We’re not _friends_! You mean nothing to me!”

Stark stepped forward and made the blast grow stronger. The excess energy ricocheted around Steve and smashed opened the windows. Cornered, maybe, with close to a nine hundred foot drop just a few hazardous steps away, but Steve figured it out.

Back during the war, Hydra had captured Bucky’s unit, where he was subjected to weeks of torture. Steve had run off, court martial be damned, to rescue him against orders and had been successful. At first Steve had been so unbelievably relieved to have Bucky alive and breathing next to him that he hadn’t noticed anything was different, anything was wrong.

It reared its ugly head about a week later, after seven long days of Steve trying and failing to get Bucky to talk to him. Bucky turned his icy ire on Steve. Not just for the stupidity of allowing such a magical atrocity done to him, but also why he bothered coming after him at all. He didn’t need any help, he didn’t need Steve, he was better off alone. Especially now that Steve had a new body, had respect, had Carter, he certainly didn’t need Bucky anymore.

Because being alone hurt less than losing everyone around you. It hurt less than the thought that people you cared desperately about didn’t need you anymore.

It wasn’t Stark’s ego he needed to address.

“Maybe you don’t need anyone, but we need you!”

“No you don’t!”

Stark stepped forward again, making Steve take a step backwards if he wanted to hold his ground. The blast got stronger.

“Yes! People are in danger, and we can’t do this without you! You’re my friend, Tony. We need you for this.” Steve grit his teeth and pulled out the big guns. “Pepper and Rhodes need you too!”

Steve almost stumbled forward when the blast cut off, just catching himself in time.

Tony raised an arm and a pocket with small missiles popped up. Curious, but not convinced.

“What did you just say?”

“Why do you think I’m here? Rhodes and Pepper asked me personally to come and check on you, because they’re _worried._ They care about you so much, Tony, and nothing is ever going to change that.”

Glancing over slightly, he saw that his team had been detained. No matter how good they were, they weren’t _really_ trying to have a serious fight, and they had been at the disadvantage with so many suits against them. They’d long ceased struggling at this point, however, everyone watching Tony’s next move.

Steve took a deep breath before he stepped forward, holding out his hand. “It would be an honor to serve with you, if you’ll have us.”

The cool morning air gusted in through the shattered windows, scuttling the stray papers and dusty into the air. Compared to the cacophony of before, the still silence rang in his ears.

“You know,” Tony finally said, lowering his arm slightly, “that doesn’t sound too bad, after all.”

Something struck Tony in the stomach, and while Steve was expecting that, no one was expecting one of the missiles to fire right at Steve. He shielded himself from the blast but couldn’t hold his ground, soaring right out the window and down towards the Manhattan streets below.

He couldn’t think to breathe or scream past the wind whistling through his ears, the only thing running through his mind as he plummeted was _this is how Bucky must have felt_ and _this is how I’m gonna die_ because even his serum wouldn’t protect him from this fall.

He’d jumped out of planes before, out of buildings, but this was different. This would kill him when he landed. It all held in one moment, feeling weightless and so heavy at the same time, watching as the ground rushed closer and closer, and the gray of Manhattan’s streets weren’t so different than the dark artic sea, the wind like the static from the radio when he could no longer hear Peggy’s voice, the cars moving like waves, and this was it, wasn’t it, he’d let Bucky fall and now it was his turn, chasing that last hope that maybe, maybe now he’d see him again—

“Cap!”

The voice was much too clear and close and Steve startled, turning in the air to see the red of Iron Man’s suit streaking towards him.

Steve nearly laughed in relief as he reached up to grasp Iron Man’s hand, but Tony went one step further and scooped him up bridal style. They hung for a breathless moment before they shot back up into the air. He landed unsteadily back into his lab, dropping Steve onto solid ground. Two steps inside and the man himself stumbled out of his suit and onto his knees, promptly puking his guts out.

Steve caught him before he face planted into his own vomit, pulling him out of the way of broken glass and debris.

“Wh… what happened… am I dying? It feels like I’m dying.” He gasped in pain, lifting up his shirt. A third rusted fragment fell from where it was stuck to his stomach, and Steve grabbed it.

“You’re not dying, I promise.”

“I could help you if you’d tell your suits to back off,” Sam called from where he was still face down on the ground, one suit on top of him while two were bracketing his wings. Natasha and Clint suffered similar fates. Clint waved from where he was pinned.

Tony blinked like he was seeing them for the first time. “JARVIS,” he said as he waved his hand. The suits backed off instantly and the three of them stood up, a little dusty but unharmed.

“You said people were in danger. What’s going on? What happened? Rushman, or whatever your name is, never thought I’d see you again. Who are you people?” he asked, gesturing to Clint and Sam.

“That’s… a long story,” Steve said. “How about we explain over breakfast.”

~*~

Tony made it just long enough to reactivate JARVIS (who he’d put on what he called “total lockdown”) offer them anything in the Tower, and shove two Hot Pockets in his face before he all but collapsed on the floor. Literally. He just said “I’m done, dealing with this later,” and lay down on the floor and passed out.

 _“Mr. Stark has been awake for about 78 hours,”_ JARVIS explained pleasantly. _“It is vital that he rest before continuing.”_

The rest of them shrugged. They couldn’t do anything until Tony woke up anyway. Steve couldn’t just leave him on the floor, though, and picked him up and put him on the couch while Sam got a blanket. Sam did a cursory once over, but just like with Clint, there was no apparent sickness within the body that could cause these symptoms. They pilfered through Tony’s kitchen, which was thankfully well stocked, and threw together foods that could count as breakfast to some people. Some might side eye Clint’s double decker ham-cheese-bacon-Oreo footlong sandwich with four different types of cheese, pickles, peanut butter, frozen peas, Doritos, red bean paste, and sliced bananas, but who were they to judge.

It was only six in the morning, about thirty hours since Fury’s death and Steve was exhausted. He was going to break his own rule and take a goddamn vacation after this.

After they stuffed themselves, they realized they were in a sort of limbo. Sam went to see if he could help relieve Tony’s aches, but without Tony, there was nothing else for them to do. Well, Natasha offered to start digging through files, but Steve thought it would be best to wait.

Tony jerked awake, startling Sam. “Pep!” he gasped. “Pepper — I gotta —I gotta get to Pepper—”

“Whoa man, hey, hey calm down, it’s all right!”

“She was in trouble! And I didn’t — I didn’t—”

“Tony, she’s all right!” Steve said, running over to his side. “She’s fine. I spoke to her yesterday morning. She and Happy are safe.”

Some tension slid out of his shoulders but didn’t abate. “I need to call her. Where’s my — JARVIS, where’s my phone?”

The phone in question was buried deep under his clothes in his room in a suit JARVIS said he wore a week ago. Steve grabbed it for Tony whose hands shook as he dialed. Sam stood up to mix some tea for him.

A few moment of silence, then it became apparent it went straight to voicemail.

“Pep, Pepper, I am so sorry. For everything. I don’t know what happened to me, but something fucked with my head—”

“Some sort of curse,” Natasha supplied.

“—some sort of curse that made me act like an asshole. Well, more of an asshole than usual. I’m so sorry I didn’t pick up the phone or come and make sure you’re all right. Cap’s here with me now, and I’m okay, thanks for sending him by the way. Just, give me a call? Even if it’s just to yell at me. Please. I’ll — I’ll talk to you soon.”

He hung up and held his head in his hands for a moment. Steve put a hand on his shoulder.

“You should call Rhodes,” he suggested. “He was worried too.”

Rhodes did pick up, and they spent twenty minutes on the phone. From their side, it sounded like Rhodes was asking a lot of questions Tony simply didn’t have the answer to. There was a lot of, “I literally just woke up five minutes ago, haven’t been filled in on that yet.”

Then, “yes, I’m fine now, I’m perfectly fine. What? A guy’s looking after me. A guy! What’s your — Sam Wilson. Says he was para-rescue. Cute, too, you might like him. Rhodey, wait that’s not —” a deep sigh “— _anyway_ I guess this is where I’m supposed to thank you for overriding my commands and making sure Cap’s passcode would still work… Don’t sound so smug about it. I will call you when I have more info. Okay? Yes I will!”

After they finally hung up, Tony wobbled over to the kitchen where he ate the leftovers of everyone’s breakfast, ignoring Sam’s protests that he should rest. Turned out Tony was as stubborn as the rest of them and they crowded around the kitchen island.

They summarized everything as best they could, even though they were pretty sure Tony was sleeping with his eyes open at a few parts. Eventually they got to where they needed to hack into Pierce’s and SHIELD’s files, where Tony said “oh, is that all?” assigned JARVIS the task, then declared he was going to go back to bed. Sam caught him before he banged his head against the sleek marble (again) and guided him to his room. They all decided to follow his lead and get some rest, even though Sam complained about his ruined sleeping schedule. Tony’s living quarters would have swallowed Sam’s house whole several times, so there were more than enough beds and showers for everyone.

Steve stared at the ceiling for an hour before he could finally closed his eyes, falling into a restless, fitful sleep.

He dreamt of ice.

~*~

“Planning on talking another dive?”

Steve didn’t start, having heard Tony coming, but he didn’t answer right away, didn’t turn away from staring impassively through the windows. He’d only slept for maybe an hour before Pepper called, frantic when Tony hadn’t answered. He spent about fifteen minutes explaining what was going on and was only able to calm her in the end by promising that he’d make Tony call as soon as he woke up.

It was a lovely day in May, miles and years from his plane in the artic, but his head was still stuck in 1945.

He smoothed his thumb over the three fragments, now connected together in a half circle and showing off the cutout of the star plain as day. It turned out the original color was silver, according to Clint’s piece. Currently it was dark and dull, although still a huge contrast to Tony’s piece, but Steve suspected it would shine soon. He still didn’t know what caused this effect or what they were.

“Coffee?” Tony offered.

Steve only took it to be polite. It’s not like caffeine did anything for him anyway. He held out the metal fragment to Tony.

“Do you know what this is?”

Tony plucked it from his fingers and Steve clamped down the knee-jerk reaction to snatch it back. He studied it for a moment, brow furrowed.

“It’s a metal? I won’t really know more before I run tests on it. Where’d you find it?”

“Well, that third is what hit you in the stomach.”

“Oh! You mean from last night? I thought that was like… a piece of scrap metal or something. Wait, what do you mean ‘third’?”

“Well, this part is from when Clint regained his senses, and this part is from Sam.”

“How did it connect together?”

“I just put it together and it stuck.”

“Um, I know you’re not an engineer, but metal doesn’t do that.”

“I _know_ that. It’s imbued with some kind of magic. Clint’s piece used to look as rusted as yours.”

“Yep, definitely magic. There’s not way rust just cleans off like that or sticks together.”

“Like I said, I _know._ I just don’t know if it’s actually metal or something that appears to be metal. It might help figure out what it is.”

Tony squinted at the fragment, then gave Steve a long, considering look. “I think,” he said, placing it back into Steve’s palm, “that you should be careful with this. Metal or not, that’s old magic. It’s no coincidence that it calls to you, or that just having it in your possession is clearing the rust away. Magic and technology have a lot in common, actually, more than people realize, but they both decay without care. Metal corrodes. Magic weakens, charms lose their power, potions become less potent over time, et cetera. And yet here you are, not a lick of magic ability to you, erasing years of neglect in a matter of hours. Just by holding it! Finding out if it’s a real metal or not isn’t going to help us figure out what it is. What we should really be looking at is _you._ You’re the key, Cap. We just have to figure out what you unlock.”

Something shivered down Steve’s spine, raising goose bumps on his flesh at Tony’s words. He felt dizzy in a way that had nothing to do with the height of Stark Tower. He was about to step on a river covered in ice, unsure how thick the ice was but able to hear the rushing of the river beneath. He had to make it to the other side. He just hoped the ice didn’t crack beneath him first.

“Everyone I know is either dead or nearly dead,” Steve reminded Tony. “If this thing is really that old, like from my war, then we’d be hard pressed to find someone that this could connect me to.”

“Well, you’re just about halfway there, three trials in and all,” Tony said. “I got a feeling we’re going to find out soon enough, whether we want to or not.”

All this space and yet the silence made him feel like they were shouting. “Pierce said,” Steve murmured, “he said that his father gave it to him. That it was a family heirloom. But he was probably lying.”

“Lying about his father, maybe. But probably not about it being an heirloom. That thing’s old, like I said. There’s no way that Pierce had it at its construction.”

“An heirloom from who, then?”

“I thought that was why I was decrypting all of SHIELD’s files. Which should be done soon, by the way.” His expression turned dark. “They made me hurt Pepper. Maybe not physically, but I promised to always be there for her. And I wasn’t. She could have _died_ and I—” He breathed out harshly. “They are not going to get away with this. Whatever that thing is, whatever they did to us that made us act the way we did, I am going to _bury_ them in the _ground_ for it _._ And whether I mean physically or legally I haven’t quite decided yet. Probably both.”

“You spoke with her?”

“Yes,” Tony snapped. “Of course I did. Called her as soon as I woke up. She was,” he sighed, “she was so worried for me. I didn’t—” he put his fist to his mouth. “I try so hard every day to be worth having someone like her in my life. I am so lucky that she’s still here after everything and I… I don’t know what I’d do without her. Run this place into the ground, obviously.”

“Tony, I’ve been meaning to ask, where is everyone? There was no one in the Tower when we arrived.”

“I may have…” Slow realization took over his face. “ _Shit._ ”

“What?”

“I may have fired everyone?”

After that, Tony drafted apology letters to everyone he’d fired yesterday, letting them have yesterday and today as paid vacation days, and expected everyone to be back in tomorrow bright and early. (“God, how did I think I could run this whole place by myself? I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast.”) Natasha, Clint, and Sam eventually wandered out of their rooms, freshly showered and refreshed. They gathered back around the living room and Tony took lead by shuffling through documents on his screens. When Sam remarked he was functioning pretty well, he just replied that he’d had hangovers worst than this and to stop being a pussy about it.

When Tony said he was hacking into SHIELD, he wasn’t kidding. He unearthed massive amounts of information and files that Steve didn’t even know where to begin. Natasha was most helpful in this part, since she could sift through what would be relevant and what would be (probably scandalous) but unrelated. Tony had JARVIS search for cases that Pierce was connected to, and even with all six of them working, it still took all afternoon.

Eventually Clint sighed and sank into his seat. “This has to be one of the most frustrating and tedious things I’ve ever done. Have we even gotten anywhere? A lot of these files are either redacted, saying half-truths, or, depending on which version you have, could be completely different. I say we go up to the man himself and just punch the answer out of him.”

“I hate to admit it, but he’s got a point,” Sam said. “Are we sure these are the most relevant files? I feel like we’re missing a huge chunk of information.”

“It’s what Tony could get without being connected to the network. Don’t argue with me, you know as well as I do that the high-encrypted data we’re looking for is inaccessible from the virtual database.”

“While I hate that you’re right, I’m gonna ignore that you said that. Thank you, JARVIS and definitely not the lying redhead, for pointing out that useful information.”

(Apparently, the rest of them learned, Natasha had been ‘Natalie Rushman’ to Tony too, just to create some profile on him. Tony was still pretty sore over it and refused to be civil.)

“So we need to be connected to the network. Where do we do that from?” Clint asked. “Pierce’s office and home are gonna be super heavily guarded, but it’ll probably be easier to sneak into his home than SHIELD.”

That lead to a debate about which place would be more likely to have the information they needed and what, exactly, they were looking for. Tony’s suggestion of ‘anything nefarious’ didn’t go over well, and to no one’s surprise Clint’s search for ‘brainwashing’ came up empty. They spent a good twenty minutes arguing before Sam, in an act of desperation against an oncoming headache, asked Steve what he thought.

With all eyes on him, Steve pulled up a three-page document he’d come across.

“What if we should look for what we’re not seeing?”

“Which means…” Clint prompted.

“So we’ve established that a majority of this information is something can be accessed relatively easily by SHIELD agents—”

“Well, I don’t know about the _majority_ , maybe only those with high enough clearance or those who are exceptionally brilliant like me who would be able to disable security protocols and bypass insane firewalls, really fell like you’re undermining my supreme effort of bringing this vast amount of useful information—”

“ _Fairly_ accessible information,” Steve interrupted, glaring at Tony before continuing. “Which means a lot of people who weren’t sympathetic to Pierce’s plans or might try to stop him could have potentially found out _if_ his plans were here. Which means that they’re not. Not fully, anyway, but I think I might have found something.”

He shared the document he was looking at to everyone’s tablet.

“This document is three page long, 756 words, and mentions a project that isn’t anywhere else in this mess. It’s also one of the only documents that has Pierce’s, Fury’s, the World Security Councils’, _and_ the President’s signature on it, along with a bunch of others. Everything else with signatures like this has way more information out in the general pool, but Project Insight is only mentioned here.”

“Project Insight?” Clint asked. “I’ve never heard of it. Have you?”

Natasha shook her head.

“So we have your secretive, extremely need-to-know project, signed off by some of the biggest players in the United States, one of which was murdered two nights ago. If we’re looking for a secret government conspiracy, there’s a good chance this is it.”

“Jasper Sitwell’s name is on this. Why is that name…” Clint said and frowned, pulling up his profile. “OH. This mother _fucker._ He’s the one who gave me the order to shoot you!”

“That’s how we can access Pierce’s office. We go through Sitwell. That will allow us to move a lot faster than trying to bypass security.”

“Kidnapping a SHIELD agent in broad daylight. You sure got balls, Cap.”

“We’ve obviously missed a huge clue,” Tony interjected. “Fury. The big man himself. He’s the one who’s been murdered over this. We should be looking into why. My bet’s he saw something with his one eye that he shouldn’t have or that Pierce was trying to hide something from him, and had to kill him to keep it under wraps.”

“Why kill him? Why not try to control him like everyone else?” Sam asked.

“Maybe it didn’t work? We’re still not really sure how they’re doing it,” Clint reasoned.

“The real ‘why’ would probably be in his office,” Natasha said. “Everything there is on a secure network and you’re only able to get on that network in his office.”

Sam sighed. “I guess that means we’re breaking into SHIELD for real? And here I hoped I’d live a quiet, non-criminal life.”

“Technically, they’re the criminals. This is like, the anti-criminal thing to do. You’re helping the Hero! No one would send you to jail on that,” Tony said.

“You mean vigilantism.”

“Same diff.”

“Enough. We’re not going in without a plan. Who has some suggestions? Natasha? Clint? You two know the layout of SHIELD best. What do you think?” Steve asked.

~*~

And here, dear readers, I could go into great detail about how they decided on their assault plan. About how they argued and debated and how it took an hour to decide on what car to drive, and another to decide to stay in New York or leave for DC, let alone the rest of it all. Now, don’t get me wrong, no planned devised by Captain America, the greatest soldier in history, could truly be a ‘bad plan.’ There might be some arguments that some plans were less thought through than others, but he was excellent at strategy and improvisation. Many, many people studied his small team assault plans in depth over the decades, since the Howling Commandos pioneered most of those techniques.

Of course, the plan could only be as good as those who carried it out. And sure, they had never truly fought together as a team before, but Steve had worked with less and pulled off amazing feats. So while yes, they were outnumbered and definitely the underdog, even as they suited up and the building loomed overhead, they never really believed they weren’t going to make it out of there.

What you need to know is simple. Sitwell was surprisingly easy to get into an unmarked and unremarkable vehicle. Turns out that Clint Barton shooting an arrow close enough to pierce your ear when you knew he had a grudge against you would convince just about anyone. After that they had split into two teams: Steve, Clint, and Sam were the distraction, while Natasha and Tony dragged Sitwell along to slip through to the 68th floor of the SHIELD headquarters in Time Square. Clint would go through first into the vents, so he could crawl his way through to the security panels and infect them with JARVIS. Once JARVIS was installed, he could easily tell the cameras to move around the team, to silence the alarms, and open biometrically controlled doors.

From its bare bones, it sounded like a pretty solid plan. What else could you expect with a few of the greatest minds and entire floor plans at their fingertips? If it were any other time, perhaps it would have gone better. But this was not another time, and they couldn’t get another shuffle of cards from the deck of life.

They might have even pulled it off if SHIELD wasn’t expecting them.

~*~

After Clint gave the go ahead, Iron Man and Black Widow snuck into the building from the back and Captain America stormed the front, with Falcon and Hawkeye drawing people out of the building from the outside. Iron Man wasn’t exactly inconspicuous, but he had JARVIS in his ear to tell him where to go. No sirens blared, no lights flashed, nothing about their environment suggested that their brigade had been noticed. They had JARVIS to thank for that.

The SHIELD agents themselves proved most troublesome, but that’s where Team Cap came in — the more agents they drew out, the less that Team Iron Man (plus Sitwell) had to deal with.

They operated on a strictly no-kill rule, since they had no possible way of knowing who was on what side and who was being controlled and who was just following orders. It seemed to be going well, until they lost contact with Iron Man and Black Widow.

“JARVIS, where are they? What’s going on?” Steve asked into his earpiece.

_“They are on the 55 th floor. I have lost all visual and contact with Mr. Stark and the Mark 42. The suit must be malfunctioning, although I don’t currently know the cause. I am working to reboot the systems and regain contact.”_

_“Well that’s not good,”_ Clint said through their coms in what was probably the understatement of the year.

“Falcon, can you get to the 55th floor? If JARVIS can’t get a visual we’ll have to use your eyes.”

_“I can definitely get up there. Do you want me to blow out the windows — WHOA!”_

Sam dove in he air as machine guns popped out of the building structure itself and began targeting him.

 _“Should I be insulted that they’re aiming to kill when we haven’t taken down anybody? The most we’ve done is make a mess, which I think is hardly worth a death sentence,”_ Clint remarked as he took out the guns with his arrows.

Times Square itself was indeed a mess. After much debate on whether they should go to DC or stay in NYC, they had to wait until late at night to launch an attack so they could minimize the amount of civilians in the area, although that was the least of their problems. Steve should have known something was wrong when there were too few people out.

“These guys are too calm,” Steve said as threw his shield into a human wall. “And too prepared.”

 _“’Cause it’s a trap!”_ crackled Tony’s voice over the coms. _“You guys need to get out of here ASAP!”_

 _“What about you? Where are you and Widow?”_ asked Sam.

_“I’m stuck like a human sardine inside a tin can and I can thank that lying redhead for that. Hey you! How does it feel being a traitor? I knew you were a bad idea! You’re loyal to no one but yourself.”_

“We need to get Iron Man and get out of here—”

_“What part of ‘it’s a trap!’ don’t you understand?! That wasn’t a suggestion! Get out of here!”_

A bomb exploded, tearing apart the front doors and knocking over Steve and SHIELD agents alike. Everyone scrambled to get back up and locate the source.

“Guys, we got company. And I don’t think they’re with SHIELD.”

 _“Damn, I didn’t even see them coming! How did I not see them?!”_ Clint said.

Steve watched as a human shape appeared through the smoke and dust, seemingly made up of the smoke itself. It flickered in and out of view, the light playing weird tricks as it bounced around. The agents held up their guns as the shape materialized into view. Everyone held their breath as the moment dragged out.

A flash of black and silver and Steve knew exactly who it was.

“It’s the Winter Soldier,” Steve said through gritted teeth into the coms as he sprinted forward, just blocking a punch from the metal arm, the sound ringing out into the room.

Clint’s swearing barely registered as the Winter Soldier kicked Steve, propelling him backwards. Steve rolled and jumped back up, giving him a moment to take in the black combat gear and mask firmly affixed over his face. His dark hair reached his shoulders and blew in the breeze. They engaged, the Winter Soldier slipping in and around Steve’s punches. He was lethal and highly efficient — he had to be enhanced like Steve, his punches too strong, too fast, it was everything Steve could do to keep up with him.

The SHIELD agents surrounded them like an audience to a dogfight, unable to jump in lest they get caught in the crossfire or hit the wrong person.

 _“Cap, we got more company out here!”_ Sam’s voice came over the coms.

Steve flipped the Winter Soldier over his body and slammed him to the ground. He bounced back up onto his feet. “Get out of here! I’ll handle this and find Iron Man.”

_“While I appreciate the rescue attempt, how about you focus on not-dying?”_

The Winter Soldier paused just for a half of a second before he threw a grenade straight at Steve.

“GET DOWN!” Steve yelled as he batted the grenade with shield out towards the gaping hole that the Winter Soldier blew open. Agents dove out of the way as Steve blocked against the explosion. The dust and debris clouded the entire foyer, covering the ground and obscuring sight lines. This time the sirens blared; JARVIS must have realized the situation was going south quickly and that medical personnel were going to be needed.

Steve coughed out smoke as he saw the Winter Soldier melt through the chaos and head towards the stairwell. Steve leapt up and went after him without a second thought.

“I’m in pursuit. Falcon, Hawkeye, what’s your status?”

 _“Captain Marvel is a friend of yours, right Cap? Do you mind telling her to back_ _off?”_ Clint said as explosions crackled through the speakers.

“Coronel Danvers? Sorry, but she’s not the one to prioritize friendship over orders.”

_“I was so hoping you wouldn’t say that.”_

“Try to lose her and get _out_ of here!”

 _“What, and let you go up against crazy scary assassin all by yourself? Not in the cards, Cap.”_ Sam answered.

Steve jumped upwards through the middle of the stairway, using the handrails as footholds, on the Winter Soldier’s heels but unable to catch up. This was just like the banquet all over again, with Steve always being two steps behind.

He lost contact with Sam and Clint on the way up, the only voice he had was Tony’s, yelling at him at how bad of an idea this was.

The Winter Soldier ducked into a door and Steve hesitated for a moment outside, reading the number 68. Tony was right. This was a terrible idea. And yet something pulled him inside, transfixed him through the red flags in his head. He edged through the door, shield at the ready, scanning the area for signs of life. The floor seemed deserted, although who knew what would be hiding behind the office doors. Likely there were safe rooms built in to some of them, since Pierce wasn’t the only high player who had an office on his floor.

The only door that was open was Pierce’s.

This was a bad idea.

This was a _terrible_ idea.

(Remember, readers, when I told you that no plan of Captain America’s could truly be a bad plan? Well, there were a few exceptions. This was one of them.)

Steve slipped through the hallway, keeping his back to a wall and his footsteps silent. Because he couldn’t mask his presence, he had to learn how to be sneaky the old fashioned way.

It didn’t matter. The man himself was waiting in his office for him, sitting behind his desk with a glass of scotch in one hand, completely nonplussed.

“Captain. How good of you to finally make it.”

The hair on the back of Steve’s neck rose and he knew undoubtedly he was being watched. He stepped out of the way of the open door, though it did little rest his unease, and tried to pinpoint where in the office the magic was coming from. There was someone else here, and if Steve wanted to keep his life and his freedom, he had to figure it out.

Pierce spoke into a communicator. “Coronel, have the traitors been apprehended?”

_“Yes sir. Bringing them to the Detainment Center now.”_

“Well, Captain, it looks like your attempt on my life has failed due to the bravery of the SHIELD agents here. Now, if you’ll go nicely like your friends down to the Detainment Center, I’m sure that by the time that the President will work out some kind of pardon for you, you’ll be come to see that Hydra’s way is the _only_ way.”

Steve narrowed his eyes, mind running a mile a minute. “Hydra died with the Red Skull.” He rolled onto the balls of his feet. If he went down to that Detainment Center, he’d walk out following Pierce’s orders whether he wanted to or not.

Pierce snorted. “Oh, to be so naïve.” He took a sip of his scotch before he snapped his fingers. “Soldier, take care of him for me.”

The air behind Steve moved and he jumped with his shield up to see—

The Winter Soldier holding a gun to his head with his metal arm. He didn’t have his mask on.

Steve took a step back, all air leaving his lungs as his mind tried to comprehend what his eyes were seeing. There was no way. There was. Steve couldn’t breathe. There was no way. His shield hung uselessly at his side, the urge to fight all but forgotten. Because that was — that _face_ — but there was no way — there was _no way—_

“Bucky?” he gasped when he could finally force air through his throat, the word sinking through the air like a stone in water, the ice underneath his feet finally cracking apart, the river roaring loudly in his ears.

“Who the hell is Bucky?” he asked. The gun stayed trained on Steve’s head, but neither of them moved.

Pierce sighed. “You know, before you had to steal that heirloom from me, he never spoke, was always a good little soldier. Now he has endless questions. Widow?”

The air behind Steve shifted again but he was too slow this time, his legs wouldn’t listen and huge sparks of electricity flowed through his body, seizing his muscles and he could smell the burning clothes and flesh before he could feel it, but oh, did he feel it when it finally registered.

He dropped to the floor with a _thump_ , unable to move, as the dark clouded into his vision. He stared upwards at two people he thought were his friends who turned on him.

_No, that’s not right… Bucky would never… Bucky…_

The Black Widow shot electricity straight into his chest at he finally lost consciousness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments are my lifeblood
> 
> i'm agentrainycarter on tumblr!!!!


	5. Tag Yourself I'm The Utter Betrayal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i'm really cutting this close to the wire ahhahahhahahfheafhkjdangnjf,sn
> 
> anyway
> 
> another chapter
> 
> please pray for me friends

He came to after an indiscernible amount of time. Voices filtered in, and he tried to focus on them. He was moving, or rather his body was, his body encased in an upright position as someone wheeled him along. A cursory tensing of his wrists let him know that even with his advance strength he couldn’t bust through. The voices… were arguing about the Seven Dwarfs?

“I’m just saying, I’m the healer. I should be Doc.”

“Okay, but do you have four PhD’s? No? Then you’re not Doc.”

“In what world am I Bashful? Do I look like I’m some blushing virgin to you?”

“At least it’s better than Dopey. You guys are the worst.”

“You didn’t even argue about it.”

“Just because I’m self aware doesn’t mean that you have to point it out.”

“Well, what about Happy? You’re certainly not Grumpy.”

“Why are we even comparing ourselves to the Seven Dwarfs anyway? There ain’t seven of us.”

“There will be, apparently. We just gotta get our Snow White up there her Prince and break the spell!”

“Steve’s not under a spell though.”

He tuned them out, their conversation just drivel but it relieved him that his friends were still alive and still themselves. That meant he couldn’t have been out that long, in fact if his mental map was correct, they were still on their way to the Detainment Center. His view was limited, his head strapped to the upright stretcher, but he could tell their security detail was tight. Carol Danvers led the patrol up ahead. His chest ached from where Natasha hit him—

What happened in the office slammed into him and he jerked, his muscles straining against the straps. Where was Natasha? Where was… could it have really been…

“Is our Snow White finally awake? Good morning princess!”

“Bucky — where’s Bucky? Natasha? Danvers, you have to listen to me, SHIELD is not what we thought it was, it’s—”

Danvers was over in an instant, clamping a hand over Steve’s mouth. Her considerable strength was more than enough to hold him down just with one hand.

“Sorry Cap, but I’m under strict orders not to let you speak and you woke up early. Where’s the gag?”

His muffled protests meant nothing as Danvers shoved the gag in his mouth.

“Did he say Bucky? As in Bucky Barnes? As in the dead Howling Commando?” Tony’s voice asked.

“It can’t really be him, can it?” Sam asked. “Didn’t he die like seventy years ago?”

“Maybe he is under a spell,” Clint suggested.

“No,” that was Tony, “but I think we finally figured out the lock to his key.”

“That’s enough,” Danvers ordered. “You better be quiet, or the rest of you will get gagged as well.”

“Don’t know how you’ll get the gag through my faceplate.”

So, Tony was still in his suit, then.

“I will rip it off if necessary.”

The threat worked, since even Tony stayed quiet after that. The entourage continued on and Steve decided that he couldn’t dwell on what it meant that Bucky was alive right now, and shoved it all down. He needed to get Bucky and Natasha out of here. Bucky had to be under the same kind of control that the rest of them were, there’s no other way, Bucky would never work for someone like Pierce otherwise. And Natasha — a pang of guilt thudded through him — he should have noticed that she was under his control too. He had to save them both, along with the rest of his team. It was his fault that they were even here.

The agents flanking them wheeled them into a large chamber, with two reinforced doors on either side of the room and a large glass window on the other. He could finally catch a glimpse of the others as they were lined up side by side in front of the window. Sam and Clint were a little tousled and roughed up, but nothing too bad. Since Tony was still stuck in his suit, it must not be online yet. Steve couldn’t imagine the kind of device they’d need to knock that out and keep it knocked out. Of course, Tony could be faking and was just biding his time, but he couldn’t count on that. They’d taken his earpiece and his connection to JARVIS. They’d left Clint’s hearing aid in at least.

He looked around the first part of the prison system. They needed to be searched, cleaned, and made sure they weren’t carrying any other weapons. It must be the reason Colonel Danvers was still with them. There were few other people who’d win in a fight with Steve, and he’d be the first to admit she was stronger. In a battle of pure strength, he’d lose.

Pierce strode in the room adjacent, the one they could see through the glass, sans scotch, with the air of the cat that got the canary. Steve glowered, anger like he’d never known rushing through his chest, coursing through his veins.

He bit through the gag, the rubber crushing beneath his teeth. He spit it out.

“That’s enough. Thank you, Colonel, you are dismissed.”

She hesitated just slightly, glancing out of the corner of her eye at Steve and the broken gag on the floor. “Yes sir,” she said, before turning on heel and leaving.

Steve could only spare half a thought to wonder if she were under Pierce’s control as well, but he couldn’t focus beyond the rage building in his stomach. He had to get Natasha and Bucky out of here first.

Despite what many people think, Steve wasn’t a violent man. That usually surprised people. He’s a soldier, and he’s so quick with words and strong with his opinion. One of the first things the Smithsonian and so many history books list was that he was prone to getting into fights over what he thought was right. Because he fought the good fight. He fought the _fair_ fight. Even now, when up against others, he pulled his punches and slowed his reflexes down to match theirs. He wasn’t cruel. He wouldn’t keep beating someone while they were down or hurt someone purely to hurt them. That wasn’t him. He never liked killing. He never liked really hurting anyone.

But when Pierce snapped his fingers and Bucky and Natasha appeared on either side of him, Steve thought he might just make an exception.

He thrashed against the restraints. “Bu—”

Pierce raised his hand and cut Steve off. The cool syrup of the magical gag slithered down his throat and froze his vocal cords. Steve jerked again, his stretcher rocking a little. If he rocked too much, he’d fall face first into the floor. He glared daggers through the glass window, willing it to shatter completely.

Steve didn’t have telekinesis, so the window stayed in tact. Pierce smiled, enjoying his struggle.

“I can’t have you speaking, you’ve already proved how treacherous that tongue of yours can be,” Pierce said, his voice playing through a speaker into their room. “I appreciate you bringing my soldiers back, however. No hard feelings, Captain.”

“Fuck me,” Clint whispered next to him.

“In fact, you’ve proven yourself to be an invaluable asset to my operation. It’s only natural at this point that you join me.” He put a hand on Bucky’s shoulder, right where his neck connected to his body. Steve wanted to throw up. “Seventy years is a long time to be apart. It’s about time you two reunited, what do you think, Captain? And become a matched set of supersoldiers for Hydra?”

Steve swallowed back the bile that crept up into his throat. He strained against the straps, twisting his wrists. He might be able to break his thumb and pull his wrist out, but he couldn’t think ahead from there. His mind buzzed and his chest ached and that was Bucky, Bucky was in pain and he couldn’t do anything about it.

Pierce snapped his fingers and a long staff appeared in his hand. It was almost as tall as he was, with a long, ornate, golden shaft. It curved upward, two blade-like pieces clutching a bright blue orb in the middle. He handed it to Bucky.

“Go on. Take this and carve his heart out. I want to add it to my collection.”

“Where’d you get that fancy scepter? Interesting power source, I might add, in fact, why don’t you just unbind me, I’ll come and study it. No charge! You don’t even need to take my heart or whatever. Actually, I’ll—”

Pierce snapped his fingers and Tony went silent. “All in good time.”

Bucky took scepter without hesitation, expression stone cold. Steve’s heart beat loudly in his ears like it could sense what was coming. He popped his left hand out of the restraint, breaking his thumb in the process, but he barely registered the pain. He could reach Clint’s restraints from where he was, he just needed the right moment where Pierce’s eye line was blocked.

The buzzer sounded and the reinforced door opened, allowing Bucky to walk through.

Steve couldn’t breathe properly. Bucky stepped up to Steve and Steve’s heart leapt to his throat, choking any sound he could have made if he could speak. Bucky stared impassively at him, not a spark of recognition in his eyes.

He lifted the scepter and pointed it straight at Steve’s heart, the blue orb glowing even brighter now that the power was being used. His ribs began to crack apart—

“Oh wait, I almost forgot!” Pierce said. Bucky pulled the scepter away and air rushed back into his lungs. “Widow, go grab the heirloom, would you? I don’t want it getting damaged in the process.”

Natasha stepped through the doors this time. Where Bucky was impassive, Natasha looked almost apologetic.

_I know,_ Steve wanted to scream. _I know this isn’t you._ Bucky stepped back so Natasha could walk up to Steve.

She paused when she saw Steve’s hand was loose. Steve made himself relax and breathe evenly. He stared at her like he could bore the words into her mind.

_I trust you._

_I have faith in you._

_I am loyal to you._

She reached her hand into his jacket pocket, taking out the half circle. It shined silver now. She glanced back down at his hand, still at his side, then up at his face.

He gave her a small nod.

_I know._

_Without you we never would have made it this far._

_I trust you._

Her eyebrows pinched together just slightly.

“Romanoff,” Pierce said, becoming impatient.

She turned on her heel and walked back out. She didn’t glance back, but Steve kept his eyes on her, so sure that she would do the right thing. He had faith. He knew she didn’t want to work for Pierce. He knew.

Natasha handed the piece to Pierce who _tsked_ before stepping up to the glass.

“Only half? And I thought you would have put a little more effort to find the pieces of your best friends soul. No matter, I’ll have you find the rest once you’re mine. Asset, if you please?”

Bucky turned back to Steve, but Steve focused on Natasha. When Pierce had moved, it had put her behind him. She locked eyes with him, the pinched in her eyebrows returning, before her eyes widened.

Just as the tip of the scepter pressed against Steve’s heart, something hit Natasha in the back throwing her forward and into Pierce, who then both hit the glass wall.

It distracted Bucky and the scepter pulled away again. Steve reached over and yanked the restraint around Clint’s right wrist off before quickly setting to take care of his own.

Natasha pulled back and punched Pierce as hard as she could in the face, yanking him up off the floor and throwing him against the glass. Bucky took off to the door, yanking it open with his metal arm to go to Pierce’s aid.

The distraction worked — Tony’s suit booted back up and he easily snapped the restraints holding him in place. With one hand he sliced through the rest of Steve’s straps and blasted through the glass window with the other. Tony rushed in to distract them both from Natasha, placing himself beside her. Steve launched over the shattered glass and moved behind Bucky, outmatched but not going to stand down.

The ground rumbled and the scepter reappeared in Pierce’s hand and pointed it at Natasha.

“You’re going to pay for that. Asset, subdue her.”

Natasha backed up a step, tense and a little wild like a caged animal. Steve could see the promise of death in her eyes as she lunged at Pierce.

The battle ended quickly — Natasha dove and weaved around the magical blasts from Pierce’s scepter with the help of Tony’s distraction. Steve engaged with Bucky, quick fists and brutal accuracy like before, Steve tried to impress just as he had with Natasha _you have a choice I trust you I **need** you_ — but nothing worked. Bucky got a hold of Steve’s throat with his metal hand, pulling him close before hurtling him back through the window. Steve’s back hit the window frame and the broken glass sliced through his shirt and skin before he landed hard on ground.

Just as Sam and Clint freed themselves, Pierce turned, saw that they were outnumbered, and leveled a blast that threw those still standing against the walls, even Bucky. Iron Man dented the cinderblock wall, Sam and Clint slid to the floor, dazed but received only minor scrapes. Natasha crumpled the ground and didn’t move.

“Asset,” Pierce ordered and Bucky came to his side in an instant.

Steve’s body reacted before his mind could put it together and he dove back over the ledge, reaching out only to miss Bucky by mere inches before they both disappeared from the room.

His momentum carried him forward and he rolled once before coming to a stop, staring back at the spot where Bucky was just a moment before.

He pulled back and punched the ground, cracking the cement floor and his knuckles. Again, he was too slow, couldn’t reach out far enough, let Bucky slip through his fingers again, he punched the floor again, _again_ , **_again_**.

The fifth time he pulled back Tony caught his arm. Sam slid next to him on his other side.

“Easy there, Cap. How about we save that for someone who deserves it?”

His hands were warm and gentle on his arm and his shoulder. Steve slumped, breathing irregular but his eyes dry. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the air glimmer and the door to the outside open, shutting quietly.

“Not that — I mean, I know this is traumatic and Cap’s bleeding everywhere, but we need to go. Like yesterday.”

Sam threw Steve’s arm over his shoulder and helped haul him off the ground, despite Steve’s legs being numb and uncooperative.

“Where’s Natasha?” Clint asked.

Steve turned his head towards the door and Clint swore, rubbing his hand down his face.

This lead to Tony gesticulating widely in some sort of sign language all his own, before he finally gave up and just blasted through the door. He pointed at his ear and then at the door. That was clear enough. Looks like JARVIS still functioned despite the owner being mute.

Steve didn’t remember much of their escape, afterwards. Sam stayed at his side, physically guiding him as he stumbled along, fingers and feet cold and head dizzy. Tony took point and Clint watched their six, but they met little resistance along the way, taking long, winding hallways and guiding them down the stairwell.

Tony led them to the 39th floor up to an open window. A sedan was parked up next to it, inside the hallway. The driver rolled down the car window.

“Heard you might need a ride,” Maria Hill said.

They climbed in, Tony finally stepping out of his suit to leave in the trunk with Steve’s shield, Sam’s wings, and Clint’s bow, and took the front seat. Sam and Steve got in the middle two seats and Clint climbed in the back. Sam pushed the seat down and made Steve lay face down so he could heal his wounds. Steve couldn’t even protest, but he also didn’t realize just how deep they were and how much blood he’d lost. Of course, he wasn’t aware of much at the moment.

Maria took off, because of course the car could fly. He didn’t know where they were going. He found it hard to care.

He wasn’t able to save Bucky again. What’s the point of anything if he couldn’t protect the one thing he cared about most?

~*~

The air in the car was tense; the magical gag long since worn off, but no one, even Tony, knew what to fill the silence with.

At first they explained that with JARVIS still running despite Tony being captured, he led Maria to where their weapons were kept, who then led Tony to Maria. Steve had questions to ask. He should have questions to ask. Instead, he stared out the window unseeingly; head lost to 1945.

_“Who the hell is Bucky?”_

“He looked right at me, and he didn’t even know me,” Steve said.

The rest of them glanced between each other.

“They must have found him, after he fell.” Steve’s stomach dropped out faster than the car descended through the air. “And I just… I just left him there. He must’ve survived the fall and I didn’t even look for him.”

“You couldn’t have known, Steve,” Sam said.

“I should’ve gone after him. Even just for his body, to bring him home to his family. But I didn’t. I good as let them carve out pieces of his soul and torture him into doing their bidding.”

The silence hung heavy in the car and no one spoke until they reached the ground, and then it was only Tony asking where they were going. They’d left the city, driving northwest towards Upstate New York. Morning broke, and the dawn was beautiful, casting pinks and oranges across the endless blue sky. Steve stared out and didn’t take in any of it.

Until the tree line shook. The trees themselves bent unnaturally outwards to form a gaping maw, the inside of the forest too dark and black for it to be anything ordinary.

“Stop!” Steve ordered and Maria slammed on the brakes.

It instantly put everyone on high alert.

“What’s going on?” Sam asked.

“Out there — you see? Clint, hand me my shield.”

“Out where? I don’t see anything.”

“JARVIS isn’t picking anything up. No heat signatures, no nothing.”

A dark shape, something huge, rustled the leaves and made the hairs on the back of Steve’s neck stand up and goosebumps crawl across his skin.

“You didn’t see that?” he asked, not breaking focus as he opened the door. He stepped lightly and slowly towards the opening in the trees, able to feel the bloodlust from the creature as soon as his feet touched the grass.

“There’s something in there,” he warned, knowing without seeing that his team was at his back.

The forest swallowed him whole, the air turning from crisp and dry to humid and grossly warm. He looked back and the road, the car, and his team were gone, replaced by endless forest. He had no idea where he was, or for that matter, where the beast was.

That answered itself as something lashed out and Steve hefted his shield, the blow sending him flying and he landed hard on the grass. The shield bounced off his arm—

His weak, skeletal thin arm. He looked down at his body, patting his skinny chest and stomach, completely devoid of his muscle. Somehow he was back in his body before the serum and a blind panic took over him.

The beast weaved between the trees but it was too dark for Steve to get a good look at him. He scrambled upwards and hefted his shield up onto his back, which dragged him backwards — he was barely able to _lift_ the damn thing let alone throw it. It dug into his thin bony shoulders as he ran away from the beast.

Just a few steps and he was already exhausted, his thoughts racing and he was going to die here, wasn't he? With this beast prowling and ready to devour him piece by piece and he was never going to see daylight or his friends again, Natasha and Bucky were going to suffer long and painful deaths and it was going to be entirely his fault—

He rounded a tree and came face to face with a large man and nearly shrieked, jumping backwards. His shield overbalanced him and he fell down, the tip of the it hitting him in the head.

The other man had stumbled back as well, his eyes wide and frightened, shaking as he gripped the tree. He was large, very large, all muscle and thick limbs and probably would be taller than Steve even after the serum. His long blonde hair was a mess, falling out of the braids trying valiantly to hold it back.

“Please don't hurt me,” he begged, cowering behind the tree. Steve hauled himself up and the man flinched. Even with all his attempts to make himself small he was still much taller than Steve.

A cold sweat dripped down Steve's neck and armpits, his body shaking from exertion and fear, hardly able to draw a steady breath. Even after all this time he couldn't forget what an asthma attack felt like. He swallowed against his tight throat.

“I'm not gonna hurt you,” he said and held out his hand. “Captain Steve Rogers.”

The man ignored his proffered hand, taking a deep breath to steady his nerves.

“I am Thor the Thunderer, son of Odin the All-Knowing and Prince of the mighty Asgard.”

Steve's eyebrows flew to his head. He'd say that this might be the weirdest thing that happened to him today, but he didn't want to jinx himself.

“Hello Thor. I'm here to help.”

He snorted. “You cannot help! You are hardly bigger than a twig. Those Bilgesnipe would knock you down with nothing more than a sneeze.”

A tremor went down Steve's spine. “What's a — what’s a Bilgesnipe?”

An inhuman roar echoed through the forest and they both jumped. Thor pointed with a trembling hand over Steve's shoulder.

“T-that!”

Whatever it was, it was huge, scaly, and had giant antlers. Steve barely got a glance before Thor took off running and Steve had to sprint to catch up with him.

Thor ducked behind a large tree, something much larger than anything they had in Upstate New York, and cowered in the borrow. Steve had to lean against the tree to catch his breath, his shield offering him no favors.

“What is that?” he hissed. “Where did it come from?”

“Bilgesnipe come from Asgard, as I do. While on Asgard my brethren and I would hunt these vile creatures for fun, but now I have lost my power and Mjolnir! You Midgardians are so weak and breakable — I cannot do anything in this state,” he lamented.

Steve understood probably every third word of that.

“Well, how do we defeat it?”

“I need mine hammer, and you a proper weapon. And a proper body. But I cannot I — I—”

Another roar pierced the air and Thor ducked down with his head in his knees.

“Hammer? What are you talking about?”

Thor whimpered. “My Mjolnir. With it I could call my lightning and slay it!”

“Oh,” Steve breathed. From what little Steve knew about Norse mythology, he knew that this Thor was acting completely opposite of how he should. How many magically enchanted people had he come across today? He nearly smacked himself.

“Thor, you have to face your fear. We're trapped here with that Bilgesnipe until you do.”

“No, no, I cannot-”

Steve kneeled down in front of Thor and put his hands on his shoulders.

“Thor, you have to.”

“You cannot make me! I will—”

“You'll what, keep running and hiding? If you do that, they'll never let you stop. Not until you're dead.”

Thor swallowed, and then said in a hoarse voice, “I have to face the Bilgesnipe?”

“No,” Steve said. He didn't know the answer until he said it, but he knew Tales. “You said you used to hunt these things for fun. You have to face what you fear most.”

Thor covered his face with his hands and shook his head. The beast roared and Thor jumped and whimpered again.

“You will not do it alone! Whatever you fear, I will not let you face by yourself.”

“What I fear you wouldn't stand a chance against. None of you Midgardians would.”

“You won't know unless you give us a chance. We're hardier than you think.”

“It is the End of Days, with horrors you could not even imagine, creatures worse than the Bilgesnipe coming to pillage and destroy Midgard!”

“Then we will face it when it comes. We are brave. We will not go down without a fight.”

“You may be brave, Captain, however I am too afraid to be.”

“Being brave does not mean acting without fear. It means being afraid, so afraid that part of you believes that you cannot move a step forward, and then taking that step anyway. It’s acting _despite_ that fear.”

Thor peeked through his fingers at Steve. What Steve said must have gone through, for the next moment everything changed.

Dark smoke plumed overhead, the sun completely blocked out. He could smell the fear, the rotting flesh and blood, the air thick with dust and ash. They were in what used to be a city, the buildings little more than ruins. He heard screams of anguish and fear, the cries of help from the helpless and the begging of death from the hopeless. The air froze into Steve’s skin and chilled his bones, making him shiver. Dark and sooty frost covered the ground and remaining structures, dampening any heat and killing anything still alive. There were bodies at their feet, two brunette women and another man, all too real and full of detail that Thor must know them personally, if his choked gasp was anything to go by.

This was no battle. This was a slaughter.

And Steve knew intrinsically that this terror had spread worldwide. It would be only a matter of time before every living creature on Earth was snuffed out.

“It was an ambush,” Thor said quietly, kneeling down next the smaller woman. “I fear that something will come for Midgard, and I will not be able to protect it and those that I love.”

“You alone, maybe,” Steve reminded. “If you call on us, we will help.”

“You cannot stop it.”

“No one could, not alone. But I know quite a lot of remarkable people that won’t go down without a fight. You’d be surprised at what we can do together.”

Thor shook his head a little in disbelief. “Midgardians,” he said, a smile growing on his face, “you continue to surprise me.”

“We’ll face it together.” Steve held out his hand again, and this time Thor took it.

“Together,” he agreed, and then leapt up. “You hear me, villain?! I will not let you take Midgard!” he shouted. “Midgard is under our protection, and we will not let you win!”

A span of a breath past before something hit Thor in his neck, making him stumble forward. The scene dispelled and they appeared in the darkened forest again.

“What matter of — what is this?”

Steve lunged forward, all six-foot-two and pounds of muscle again, and snatched the piece from Thor’s hand. He cradled it in his palm, his heart aching at the rusted fragment of Bucky’s soul.

“Oh!” Thor said, eyeing Steve up and down. “Is this your true form, then?”

“...Something like that.”

“Mjolnir!” he called. Thor looked around, his head held high and shoulders back and proud. “Where is Mjolnir?”

“Where’s what?”

“My hammer,” he said, narrowing his eyes at the landscape. “We are not safe yet. The curse we are under is still in effect.”

“You broke out of it, though.”

“Yes,” he agreed, “but you have not.”

Steve clenched his jaw, unable to stop his skin from turning to gooseflesh. He knew what Thor was about to say and yet he wished to clamp his hand over Thor’s mouth to stop his words.

“What do you fear most, Captain?”

A warm hand pressed on his elbow. “Steve?”

He turned and lost all breath at the sight of Peggy. He drank her in; her dark brown hair curled and pinned to her head, her dark burgundy dress and matching heels, her bright red lips and her sweet smile, her eyes young and bright again. In his peripheral vision, he saw the dance floor, the other dancers, and heard the laughter and the singer crooning gently into the microphone.

“Steve,” she said again, “there you are. We’ve been looking for you.”

All words choked in his throat as he reached for her, gently touching her face. It was warm in his hand.

“We did it Steve. We won the war. We can go home.”

They made it home. He couldn’t believe it.

She took his hand. “Come on, soldier, you owe me a dance.”

He couldn’t take his eyes off her, she was so lovely, not a hair out of place even as he spun her around, so solid and real in his arms. Yet something still drew his attention, perhaps it was the smell of smoke, perhaps it was just the niggling in the back of his mind, but he looked away and at the others in the ballroom. The noise rose, the band mixing with the loud laughter and conversation until nothing was discernable. The more he looked the more horrified he become — the people were dancing around with gunshots wounds, missing limbs or eyes, burns that engulfed their entire body, all still bleeding and pussing, the stench of it stinging his eyes.

He turned back to Peggy; he needed to get her out of here but froze on the spot.

The Peggy of 2014 stared back at him accusingly, wrinkled and frail and white-haired, dressed in her hospital gown.

“You were supposed to come back!” she lashed out, pushing him in the chest with far more strength than she should be able to. “We needed you! How could you abandon us?”

A bang sounded behind him and he reached for his shield that wasn’t there.

“Abandon her,” a voice sneered. “How could you abandon _me_?!”

Bucky stalked toward him, the Bucky from 1945 with his short hair and blue coat, how he looked just before he fell. He clutched the bleeding stump of his left arm.

“Weren’t we supposed to be _best pals,_ Steve?”

Steve backed up as Bucky advanced.

“ _You left me to die!_ ” he yelled.

Steve could only watch as Bucky transformed; the blue of his warm jacket slicked into black leather, his hair grew long and unruly, pieces of metal jutted out of his stump, making horrible grinding and screeching noises as the arm pieced itself together.

“I would have done anything for you!”

He leaned back and punched Steve right in the chest, throwing him across the floor. Steve scrambled up, but Bucky was too fast and kicked him back down.

“Is this how you treat your friends?! Does your new team know how you leave people for dead once they stop being useful to you?! How do you get to walk around like nothing happened when good men, men better than you, are left rotting in the mud?!”

Steve scooted back against the onslaught, but Bucky was unrelenting.

“It should have been you!”

_Fear_ , Steve thought blindly, _fight the fear._

“I know, Bucky,” he said, finally finding his voice.

“You don’t know _anything_!” Bucky grabbed him by the front of his uniform and threw him against a wall. “You don’t know anything about what I went through! How I believed for _so long_ that you would come for me! _And you never showed!_ ”

“You’re right, I can’t know,” Steve said and hauled himself up off the floor. “And everything that happened to you — that’s on me. I never should have left you there. I should have gone back for your body. I have no excuse for anything that happened, and you have every right to hate me.”

He scoffed. “ ‘Hate’ doesn’t even to begin to describe it, pal.”

“I know,” Steve said. “And I accept full responsibility for what I did—”

Bucky pulled a gun out of his side clip and aimed it right between Steve’s eyes.

“—and any consequences that come from it.”

The safety clicked off. Steve held his gaze steady.

Another _BANG_ and—

Bucky disappeared. The dance hall vanished, replaced with the lovely woods of Upstate New York, the sun high in the sky, the air warming his chilly bones.

“Mjolnir!” Thor called. This time his hammer came flying towards his outstretched hand. He lifted it to the sky, calling his lightning to the tip of his hammer. The tattered and dirty clothes were gone, replaced with sleek battle armor and a long red cape, his hair neat and tidy down his back. He laughed in glee.

“We did it! You broke us free, Captain, and for that I will be forever grateful.” He kneeled before Steve, placing his hammer on the ground. “You have mine power and mine hammer for whatever battle may come, we will fight for your good will.”

“Steve!” called from above. Sam flew into the clearing, followed closely by Tony. “Are you all right?! What the hell happened?!”

“Yeah, how about next time _don’t_ run off into an obviously magically cursed forest, even if it is for Red Riding Hood, hm?”

Clint and Maria were seconds behind, charging into the scene, pausing at Thor kneeling in front of Steve. Maria gestured at him, before staring at Steve, beyond the ability to be surprised at anything anymore.

“Who’s this guy?”

~*~

It turned out that Steve had been gone for three hours, to which Steve it had felt like fifteen, maybe twenty minutes at most. Thor, to his calculations, had been gone just about a month.

They piled back into the car and let Sam bully him into reclosing the wounds he’d reopened. The car, which had felt small before, now was just comical with Clint and Thor squished into the back seat, which had Thor grumbling about unaccommodating and primitive Midgardian technology. They explained the basest details of what had happened, neither wanting to get into their own greatest fear, and unwilling to describe each other’s.

(Tony immediately wanted to get ahold of Thor’s hammer to study it, to which Thor just chuckled and said if you can lift it, it’s all yours. He couldn’t, much to the amusement of everyone in the car.)

They arrived at their destination about a half hour later, into a deep bunker that probably been abandoned in the 1950’s. Steve hated that he was surprised that Fury was alive and kicking in his hospital bed, the night of his death felt eons away.

“About damn time,” he said.

After explaining everything they’d been up to, he described what he knew, along with his numerous injuries.

“Project Insight was meant to predict threats before they happened. It would compose profiles of every human and non-human we know about and keep tabs on everything everyone did. It’s a virus that we’d release into the internet, phones, schools, any closed system we could get our hands on, and we’d monitor people.”

“And what happened when people met your profile?” Sam asked.

“We’d take care of it.”

“What happened to ‘innocent until proven guilty’?”

“We can’t afford to wait that long.”

“Who’s ‘we’?”

“The World Security Council and _wow_ , that’s a lot of people on the United Nations. I wonder what would happened if the people found out about this,” Tony said. His Iron Man arm doubled as a computer, it seemed, propping open on his lap and allowing him to key through information. “Oh, I’m sorry, am I not supposed to know that? See, JARVIS is still running at SHIELD and was able to decrypt every nasty secret you guys have tried to hide. Especially Pierce. Care to explain what Phase 2 of the Tesseract is? Also, does anyone want to explain to me how a guy who’s marked as non-magical suddenly becomes a fucking powerful sorcerer, powerful enough to steal souls at will? And what the hell is that scepter of his? Has this not been bugging anyone else?”

“The Tesseract?” Steve asked, contributing to the conversation for the first time in an hour. “I thought that thing was lost in the ocean.”

“You have the Tesseract?” Thor asked. “No wonder your planet bodes such ill will from others.”

“Dear old daddy found that when looking for you,” Tony said. “You sound like you have information, Shakespeare-in-the-park, care to share it?”

“I fear that it is my brother Loki who desires the Tesseract.”

“Wait, Loki as in the Trickster God? _That’s_ who we’re up against?” Clint asked. Sam eyed him questioningly. “What? I know things,” he said defensively.

“Yes. And it is with his scepter that he can wield the Tesseract. It is a magical endless power source that, when harnessed, could be malleable to the user’s will, if one could harness the power of the equivalent of a million stars. It can create portals to other dimensions, call upon endless energy—”

“And weapons,” Steve said, leveling a glare right at Fury. “You were going to create weapons just like Hydra.”

“We needed a quantum surge in threat analysis. Our planet is greatly unprepared compared to others like _his_.”

Thor’s eyebrows flew to his hairline. “So it is _my_ fault you Midgardians are so weak and tiny?”

“So you were just going to create enormous weapons, capable of destroying entire worlds, and what, just promise that none of that power would leak out and destroy select people that SHIELD — and Hydra — deemed a threat before they even did anything?” Steve asked, swelling anger in his stomach. “Or would you hold that over people’s heads as a threat that if they acted wrong they would be targeted and killed without a trial and jury. I’m sorry, I guess I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around why you would allow yourself and SHIELD to become something you had sworn to protect the people from.”

“And how is that different than what governments and wars have been doing since the dawn of time? You know, I read those SSR files. The Greatest Generation? You guys did some nasty stuff.”

“Yeah, we compromised. Sometimes in ways that didn’t let us sleep so well at night. But we did it so people could be free. But this? This isn’t freedom. This is fear. Just because many people having done it doesn’t make it right.”

“ ‘Fraid I’m gonna have to agree with Cap here” Tony said, much to everyone’s surprise. “Nuclear deterrents aren’t exactly known for calming things down.”

“Did you know about the souls?” Steve asked.

“No,” Fury said. “And I didn’t know about Barnes, either. That is what I was trying to _stop._ ”

“Would you have even told me if you did?”

“Why do you think I grabbed that heirloom from Pierce and handed it to you? I didn’t know what it was,” he added quickly when he saw the indignation on Steve’s face, “but I knew that it was apart of whatever Pierce was planning. A lot of things weren’t adding up, but I knew something was wrong when an old SSR base was raided back in Camp Lehigh. It took a lot of digging, but I found the reason — Arnim Zola.”

“Zola,” Steve repeated slowly. “What the _hell_ was a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull doing in an SSR base?”

“Operation Paper Clip,” Maria explained. “SHIELD recruited German scientists with strategic value. Except we found out, perhaps too late, that he was doing some recruiting of his own.”

“My dad worked at that SSR base,” Tony said. “What the hell was he thinking? Especially since he made love to your picture every night.”

“I don’t know,” Steve sneered, “a scientist with a specialty in torture and creating terrible weapons seems to fit right in with SHIELD.”

A heavy and uncomfortable silence fell onto the group.

“Listen,” Fury finally said, “we need to do a major overall, I get that, but once we dig out all the moles, then maybe, just maybe we can salvage—”

“We’re not salvaging anything, Nick!” Steve snapped and stood up. “SHIELD — Hydra — it all goes.”

Steve and Fury stared at each other, the tension thick. Fury looked away first, around the room, but no one backed him up, not even Maria.

He sighed in defeat.

“Guess you’re giving the orders now, Cap.”

~*~

Steve had to leave the base after that, feeling too stifled and cramped within its walls. He sat beneath the bridge, alone and lost in his head. The rusted piece rested in his palm, just slightly less decayed than it had been when he found it. He heard the light footsteps and assumed Maria had drawn the short straw to come and get him.

“You found another already?”

He flinched slightly, glancing up.

“Natasha!”

She joined him at his perched, pale with deep bags under her eyes, and clutching her side.

“You look terrible,” he said, reaching for her.

She snorted. “You sure know how to charm a lady, Cap.”

“We both know you never found me charming.”

That drew a small smile from her, even if it dropped quickly. She licked her lips, her stare boring into him.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t,” he said, shaking his head, “that wasn’t you. I know. If anything, I should be apologizing. I should have recognized the signs.”

“I did — I did know, that what I was doing wasn’t right.”

“You knew?”

“After a while you… you become aware. You still can’t stop it, not really, but you know.”

“How long were you…?”

“About six months, as far as I can tell.”

Steve swore. “I’m so, so sorry, Natasha.”

“I stuck my nose where it didn’t belong,” she said and shrugged. “I found out about Project Insight. Pierce thought he’d rather have me under his control than have me killed. I helped do the same to other people, Steve. My hands are not clean in this.”

“ _Pierce’s_ hands are not clean,” he corrected. “You were a victim in this.”

Her eyes turned dark. “There are a lot of people in this world, a lot of bad people. A lot people that have had a hand in what I’ve become, for better and for worse. But there are few people that I hate more than him. Although,” and she grinned viciously, “few people probably have cause to hate him more than you.”

Steve clenched his jaw and looked away. “I will bring him to justice,” he said.

“Right. You just leave the dirty work to the rest of us.”

“I didn’t—”

“I know you didn’t,” she said. “You wouldn’t. You may not have much charm, Steve, but you sure make up for it with blind faith.”

“I knew you’d come back.”

“If only to give you this,” she said, and opened her palm. The fourth piece of Bucky’s soul joined the fifth.

“I knew you’d come back even without this,” he promised.

Her hand closed around his, her fingers icy to the touch. Her bright green eyes found his again.

“I owe you.”

Steve shook his head, but she didn’t let him protest.

“I do. You know, before I joined SHIELD, I was at the mercy of a lot of people. They manipulated me, distorted my memories, used me and my body for their gain. After I defected I promised myself that wouldn’t happen again. I would work for what was considered the good guys and keep my head on my shoulders. But I couldn’t even do that.”

“Well,” Steve said, leaning back a little against the rock, “I do know that without you I would have never made it this far. And you did that even under his control. That’s worth everything.”

She narrowed her eyes, and Steve thought she could see right through him.

“If it were down to me to save your life, and I mean this seriously, would you trust me to do it?”

“I would now,” he said. “I’m all about blind faith, don’t you know?”

Natasha tilted her head a little, like she couldn’t quite believe someone this stupid could exist.

“C’mon, you’re hurt. Let’s get you to Sam.”

She put her hand up when he reached for her. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Steve paused. “They all feel terrible they didn’t realize it. You’re apart of this team, Natasha, and we care about you.” He put his hand around her slim frame and helped her up.

“I won’t do that again.”

“I know, we all know.”

“I mean it. I’m — I acted differently. Did things I wouldn’t do. Even when Fury died.”

“Yeah,” Steve said. “About that.”

~*~

After catching Natasha up to speed, she resisted resting, even though she by far had worse aftershocks than the rest of them. (Thor boasted that he felt nothing more than a slight sting after his piece of soul returned, which earned him glares from everyone else.) Clint and Sam apologized profusely for how they acted, and Tony gave her a begrudging clean slate, which was about the best they could ask for. Sam and the other doctor looked Natasha over as she fielded endless questions.

Finally she cut them off. “I think it’s time I told you the true Tale behind the Winter Soldier.”

~*~

Once upon a time there was a very evil and vile man, who proclaimed himself a genius and a scientist. The scientist was fascinated by human life and what bound us together, what really made us human, and he found that the best test subjects were living things. He had no trouble causing endless strife in the pursuit of his research.

After being run out of Switzerland, he fled to Germany. There he was given an unprecedented opportunity under the rise of Hitler and the Nationalist Party.

A man called the Red Skull sought him out. He told the scientist, “what better for you than to do the good work of Hydra? Come and serve under me and we will give you endless test subjects for your research.”

It came with a stipulation, of course, he was to attempt to recreate the supersoldier serum that the good Doctor Erskine had created, and create weapons for Hydra using the power of the Tesseract. Fortunately both these projects fascinated the scientist, and he took to them with glee.

There was another unprecedented circumstance — their opposition. A man named Captain America and his Howling Commandos hounded the Red Skull and Hydra, threatening the scientist’s position. They burned Hydra base after Hydra base, and the scientist looked around at what he thought was the end of the war and the end of his experiments.

The war did end — he was captured by the Howling Commandos, the Red Skull burned alive, and Captain America was buried in the icy Arctic. Surely, this would be the end.

An end with new beginnings, perhaps, and he began working with his once-enemy. After a few years and planting the many new seeds of Hydra within, he retired and returned to his beloved Switzerland.

There he made a wonderful discovery. He was approached by a new friend of his, one of the many Russians who felt wronged by the war that ravaged the Motherland. There he led the scientist to a secret bunker and requested his knowledge and expertise left dormant since the end of the war.

The scientist could hardly believe his eyes. He’d heard that the Captain lost one of his Howling Commandos in capturing him, his good Sergeant, and there his body was, in what the Russian described as a cryochamber.

“We found his body,” the Russian explained. “He was there buried in the snow of the ravine, frozen solid, for seven days and seven nights. His body has been perfectly preserved and we have already revived him successfully. Since this is such a special subject, we only wanted the best to get him under control.”

The scientist couldn’t believe his good luck! And he agreed, and the Russian sent his workers to revive the Sergeant.

When he finally came to, the Sergeant looked ragged — too thin and tired, without much muscle.

“I should be able to do it, however I do not know how much use he will be to you.”

“Don’t let his current state fool you,” the Russian assured. “Even with just one arm he was able to kill three of my men when he woke last.”

“Yes, I will do it. He will be ours to control.”

That grabbed the Sergeant’s attention.

“I will never work for you,” he vowed. “I love my country, my men, and my Captain too much to ever do so.”

The Russian scoffed. “Your beloved Captain is dead.”

“Then I will join him gladly in the afterlife.”

The scientist grinned slowly, only excited by the Sergeant’s protests. “Then I will take your heart, and you shall forget all about your silly Captain, and you shall be mine.”

The scientist had done much work studying the souls of living creatures. It was what originally burned his curiosity, and when he hadn’t been attempting to duplicate the serum or create more weapons for the Red Skull, he had been taking prisoners and poking at their souls, seeing what made them tick.

The Sergeant paled at this, as he had been one of those prisoners, and he remembered his first encounter with the scientist. This was not the first time the scientist had taken a piece of his soul, but slicing souls was a touchy business. When he realized that his Captain still cared deeply for him and his friendship, it came back. But now his Captain was dead, and before long he was stripped and strapped to a cold metal table, bright lights in his eyes, with the scientist grinning above him.

The scientist discovered that if you took the entire soul at once, you came across the problem of the empty carcass it remained. Sure, it was _technically_ still alive, but it couldn’t do anything by itself. The body needed someone to constantly control it so it could function. That was exhausting after a while, and used too much power, especially over a grand scale.

So the scientist proposed a new solution — only take a bit of the soul, just enough to control, and the rest would pilot the body and keep it alive. As long as no one showed the Sergeant any love, the body would be his to control.

He spent hours and days carving out the heart. He would come to learn that the heart was the most difficult and stubborn to control, especially that of the young Sergeant.

The scientist did succeed in every sense of the word. He triumphantly held the heart of the Sergeant, now in the shape of a bright red star, in his palm. The Sergeant could not remember anything about himself, nor of his beloved Captain.

The Russian was beside himself, and renamed the Sergeant. “ _Soldat,_ ” he said. “The Winter Soldier. You will help me make the world a better place.”

“I am ready to comply,” the soldier answered.

He quickly built a new and better arm out of metal and attached it to the soldier’s left shoulder, giving him a deadly and defensible edge, and they put him to work.

And for a while, their plan went perfectly. Hearts, however, were tricky, as was only taking a piece of the soul. The rest of it remembered where the soldier’s heart did not, and he attempted to escape.

This enraged the scientist and the Russian.

“How dare you disobey me!” the Russian lashed out. “I have your heart! I have control!”

“I am not yours to control,” the soldier answered. “I do not belong here.”

The scientist, pride wounded but not ready to admit defeat, quickly thought of a plan.

“You have too much free will,” he said. “I think I will take that as well.”

So he carved the soldier’s free will out of his left ankle, and the soldier could never run away again.

And it worked. The soldier never desired to flee, and followed orders even better than before. The Russian was very pleased with this, but the scientist could not help but pick out the flaws in his work.

“What are you doing?” he asked the soldier. “What did you do to those children?”

“They were hungry,” the soldier replied. “They begged for mercy, so I gave them food and water.”

“ _Mercy?_ ” the scientist sputtered. “You continue to surprise and disappoint me, soldier. I will have to make sure you will never do that again.”

So he carved the kindness out of the soldier’s right palm. When the soldier saw the children again, he swatted their filthy, greedy hands away.

He noticed several things after he did so that weren’t so obvious before. Not only did it change the personality of the soldier, but it also influenced how those reacted around him. Those who were indifferent now turned cruel. This fascinated the scientist.

That was until he noticed that despite any kindness gone, he still managed to befriend the other prisoners. Perhaps it was they recognized the deadness in each other’s eyes, or perhaps anything the soldier did was still kind compared to how others treated him, but still, the scientist could not stand it.

He had to have the perfect soldier. He couldn’t have him possibly forming alliances with others. What if he started a riot? What if he attempted to escape again? The scientist could not ignore this chance.

So he carved any desire for kinship out of the space just below his ribs, and felt satisfied when the prisoners sneered or turned away when he passed. The pieces took shape around the soldier’s heart, the red long since dulled.

“Oh, to see what they did to you,” the Russian would often say. “It would break your Captain's heart.”

Where the scientist tried to pass off that this was easy, splitting souls took much power out of him. His body was certainly failing with a sickness that science could not yet cure, and he needed to take time to rest.

To prevent the soldier from attempting to break control, they stuck him back in the cryochamber between missions. There the soldier would sleep frozen solid, and would be ready whenever his services was needed.

The scientist took a few years to rest and attempt to preserve his body, and the Russian used the soldier from time to time.

He could not stay away, not when this was his greatest work, and came back to observe the soldier. The soldier did not recognize him, as he could not retain any long-term memories, but it enraged the scientist when he seemed to prefer some of his Russian handlers to him. _He_ was the soldier’s creator; he above all else should have that loyalty!

So the scientist carved the trust out of the soldier’s back, and felt satisfied when he could sense the innate faith that the soldier had in him.

In and out of the cryochamber the soldier went as the years passed, as the scientist’s body continued to fail him, as the seeds of Hydra he planted so long ago continued to grow and flourish inside the belly of his enemy.

As the scientist became weaker and frailer, he noticed the glances of those who worked with him. He saw their laughter and their doubt, and he became enraged. Not even the soldier seemed to fear him anymore.

So he carved the bravery out of the soldier’s neck. Now that the soldier feared the scientist, everyone else did as well.

The scientist’s body was dying, but his obsession with creating the perfect weapon would never. It finally occurred to him that while he knew the soldier was a monster, the soldier did not.

So he carved the humanity out of the soldier’s forehead. The last of the light left his eyes, and the scientist could not have been more satisfied.

_Perfect, perfect, I have created the perfect weapon,_ he thought to himself. Even if his body failed him, his perfect weapon wouldn’t.

The scientist past away not a few months later and the soldier was lost for over two decades before he was recovered in an old Russian base. The seeds that the scientist had planted so long ago had spread like weeds into governments and businesses alike, and with the help of the soldier, they could finally push humanity over the edge into chaos.

They woke the soldier. It was time for him to be sent back to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm agentrainycarter on tumblr!!!
> 
> let me know what u think :))


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yikes™
> 
> anyway
> 
> here we go

The silence hung thick and heavy in the bunker after Natasha finished her Tale. No one wanted to state the obvious, not with the way Steve held his head in hands, but two pieces of Bucky’s soul were still unaccounted for. His humanity, and his heart.

Tony opened his mouth several times, for once trying to mind himself but unable to keep quiet, before finally settling on, “how come when the pieces broke apart, they didn’t go back to him? He was right there.”

“Seventy years is a long time,” Natasha said. “I’m not sure, but my guess is that the soul was in too much pain to recognize itself or its body anymore, so it found others. Besides, the heart is the most important. Where the heart is, the rest will follow.”

Eyes settled on Steve, but Steve didn’t raise his head.

“So where’s he keeping the pieces?” Tony kept on, the questions burning inside him. “If we can make the leap that he’s figured out how to carve pieces of souls out of people, then he has to be keeping them somewhere. And have a shit ton of power to do so. Which we already solved with Loki’s scepter and the Tesseract, but how did he get the scepter? How do we stop him? He has to realize we’re planning on regrouping, but how can he be so sure he’s going to win? I still don’t feel like we have all the answers. Why is Loki helping Pierce out anyway? I can’t imagine he could have much interest in our politics.”

“Loki wants nothing more that to breed chaos into the lives of others, and he has a grudge against me and this world. He wishes to rule and is no doubt using this ‘Pierce’ in order to do so.”

“Great,” Clint said. “You had a fight with your brother and now the rest of us have to suffer for it? My brother’s an asshole too, don’t see me collapsing governments and taking over planets because he took some money or something.”

“Take care of how you speak of my brother.”

“He killed eighty people and enslaved many others in the month he’s been here,” Natasha said.

Thor looked a little cowed. “He’s adopted?”

“And to answer your question, Tony, he keeps most of the pieces in his New York office. The rest he’s using at the time are kept on his person.”

“See — that’s helpful.”

“How’s Loki planning on taking over the world?” Fury asked. “Pierce has his eyes on the U.S., but it’s gonna take a lot more man power to subdue all seven billion of us.”

“He has an army called the Chitauri. Their kind was made for destruction and death and they will stop at nothing to conquer all they set their eyes on.”

“You wouldn’t happen to know when they’re coming, would you?” Maria asked. “It would be nice to be able to be able to prepare beforehand.”

“I am afraid I do not know. I would expect it to be soon, but unfortunately I was left cursed before I could uncover this.”

“How about when Project Insight was supposed to go up? When was that?” Clint asked.

“In seven hours,” Maria answered grimly.

“We’re certainly cutting it a little close,” Natasha said.

“As soon as we make a move, they’re gonna hit us full force, so we might not have that much time,” Sam said. “Y’all got some powerful friends that we know have their souls intact?”

“Rhodey,” Tony said.

“Anyone else?”

“The World Security Council isn’t exactly taking my calls anymore,” Fury said dryly. “But they’ll be in the building in a few hours to celebrate the launch of the virus.”

“So we hit his office first,” Steve interjected, sitting back in his chair. He didn’t meet anyone’s eye and stared past at the wall opposite. “We release everyone from his control that we can. We hit hard and we hit fast, in several places. We need to alert everyone who is pieced together of what happened, and I am sure they will fight with us. If we assume that once we do, Loki will make his move, we’re going to need all the help against the Chitauri we can get.”

“But where is Loki going to do it?” Tony asked. “Okay, so, we go with the sibling rivalry thing. He’ll want to rub it in your face how you couldn’t save Earth or whatever. He’ll want lights, flowers, everyone in the world to see where he—”

Steve raised his eyebrows.

“Son of a bitch,” he said. “He’s gonna use my Tower.”

“Okay,” Steve said. “Then here’s what we do.”

~*~

They take the Quinjet and make a pit stop in DC. Sam had pulled him aside earlier, hand on his shoulder trying to soften the blow of his words.

“You know, even if you manage to complete his soul, he’s not gonna be the same. He might not be able to handle the strain of his soul coming back together after soul long. You know it might kill him, right?”

“I know Bucky,” Steve said. “He’d rather die in pieces and himself than live broken apart and lifeless.”

And Sam left it at that, though Steve felt the weight of his gaze as they snuck into the Smithsonian.

If they’re going to fight a war he’s going to need a uniform, after all.

~*~

They split up. JARVIS was still running in in the SHIELD security system, so Cap, Falcon, and Agent Hill were able to sneak in much easier this time. The gaping hole from Bucky’s grenade was boarded up, construction workers filing in and out. It was easy enough to grab a few agents in full gear and use their uniforms. With JARVIS leading the way, finding the 12th floor broadcast station was a breeze.

Hill continued on upstairs to the security station so she could have eyes on everything.

They made quick work of subduing everyone in the station and locked most of them in a room without their phones. Steve apologized while he did so, feeling bad about having to do this. Barely anyone on this floor was trained in fighting, and the few that had some field experience looked more interested in getting Captain America’s autograph than putting up a fight.

They keep two people to help them run the camera with Sam’s supervision. Captain America was going to make a statement.

Lights struck, camera on, and Steve’s face showed on every national broadcast network, his voice through every speaker in SHIELD headquarters.

He took a deep breath.

“Attention everyone. This is Captain Steve Rogers. I know you’ve heard a lot about me these past few days. Some of you in SHIELD have even been ordered to hunt me down.”

He glanced at Sam, before settling back onto the camera.

“We the people have been lied to. SHIELD is not what we thought it was — it has been taken over by Hydra. Alexander Pierce is their leader.”

Seventy floors above Steve, the four World Security leaders turned and gaped at Pierce. Pierce sighed in disappointment and took out his phone.

“He has committed horrible crimes of human torture by way of tearing pieces of people’s souls out of their bodies and then using that piece to control them. These are people in the past few weeks who have turned against their friends and family, who isolate themselves, and act completely horribly. This is so Pierce can gain control over the most influential people in the world — and those who serve the greatest threat to his plans.

“And this is only the beginning. Once Pierce has secured control over the United States government and its military, he’ll turn his sights worldwide. It’s only a matter of time before Hydra spreads across the world, and it has already infected SHIELD. The STRIKE team is Hyrdra, and I don’t know who all else. They could be standing right next to you.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Steve can see the two agents helping with the broadcast cross their arms and shake their heads, desperate to show they weren’t Hydra.

“I know I’m asking a lot. The price of freedom is high, always has been. But I cannot stand idle and watch such atrocities committed and especially not while I know that others are being tortured and forced to act against their will. If I’m the only one, then so be it. But I have a feeling I’m n—”

The wall blew out and Steve ducked behind his shield against the debris. Something giant and green landed on the floor and roared before it lashed out, striking Steve and sending him flying through the wall and out into the street below.

 _“Steve!”_ Sam yelled into the coms.

“I’m fine!” he said as he spread his limbs out to try to slow his speed. “Get them out!”

_“What the HELL IS THAT THING?”_

Steve curled into his shield just before he slammed into the ground. He narrowly missed landing on a car and another two cars narrowly missed him as horns honked and people around him screamed.

 _“Shit, that’s the Hulk!”_ Clint said.

 _“I thought he was supposed to be in India,”_ Natasha said.

 _“Obviously not anymore!”_ Sam said. The roar echoed through the coms.

Steve winced in pain but got himself up, watching as the screens in Time Square showed the Hulk thing tearing up the room, Sam flying around it, before he threw something at the camera and the screen went black.

“How do we fight it?”

 _“You don’t,”_ Fury said.

The Hulk leapt from the building out onto the street. People scattered, abandoning their cars and Steve backed up on the defensive, the Hulk batting cars out of his way like batting flies.

“Any ideas?”

_“Ask him to stop?”_

_“That things a monster, Hawkeye, he’s not gonna listen—”_

“A monster?”

Sam swore. _“Steve, no!”_

 _“So I know this isn’t the best time for bad news,”_ Tony said. _“But Loki just opened a giant portal on the roof of my Tower and I am **not** happy about it.”_

 _“Steve,”_ that was Maria, _“the monster is named Doctor Bruce Banner, but think of him like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and right now he’s Mr. Hyde. He gets stronger as he gets angrier and so far nothing short of knocking him out can stop him. Until now Banner was in India helping the poor children get medical help.”_

Steve dodged and rolled away from the Hulk’s giant fists sparing a glance to the open sky. A beam of bright blue light erupted from Stark tower into the clouds, a circular opening gaping into the darkness of space. Several somethings started flying out of it.

“Hulk _SMASH!”_ he yelled before throwing his fists to the ground, splitting the pavement down the middle and making the earth tremble.

Steve took a deep breath. One problem at a time.

“Hey Hulk!”

The Hulk was surprisingly fast and agile for his size, and Steve put all his energy in diving and dodging around his fists. If he got caught by a punch he’d be done for.

“Why are you fighting me?” he asked. “Who told you to?”

“HULK FIGHT PUNY MAN!”

“Well I don’t wanna fight you,” he said and narrowly missed being brained.

 _“Cap, do you wanna speed this up? I’m biting my nails up here watching him try his best to squash you like a bug,”_ Sam said.

“They probably make you angry!” Steve said. “They make you feel terrible for being what you are!”

“HULK DON’T CARE!”

“I don’t think you’re a monster!”

Steve must’ve touched a nerve with that one, and the Hulk barreled right at him, tearing up the streets of Times Square.

“I know you’re not! You went far away, you just wanted to be left alone, you wanted to help!”

The Hulk threw a car and Steve rolled out of the way.

“I need you to prove to them you’re not! Prove them wrong by _fighting back!_ ”

He slowed, breathing heavy, but focused on Steve.

“I’ll vouch for you,” he promised. “I’ll tell everyone you’re a hero. You’re not a monster, Hulk, so go and show them wrong and fight!”

“Who Hulk fight?” he growled.

 _“We got company,”_ Tony said, desperately trying to stay calm. _“We got big blue whale sized company. With way more weapons.”_

A huge, well, whale-shaped creature was honestly the best way to describe it, came swimming through the portal and down into Manhattan, tearing the sides of buildings of as it did. More aliens spilling off its sides and onto the streets.

“That,” Steve said.

The Hulk looked between him and the alien whale-beast.

“You will vouch for Hulk?”

Steve raised his right hand. “I swear on my life.”

“HULK NO MONSTER!” he roared. “HULK _SMASH_ MONSTERS!”

Something smacked him in the forehead and he growled, wiping his face, before leaping hundreds of feet into the air to punch the alien whale-beast head on.

 _“Well fuck. Good job, Cap,”_ Clint said. _“Except what now?”_

 _“Call it, Cap,”_ Tony said.

Steve patted the rubble, but fortunately the piece of Bucky’s soul wasn’t hard to find. He grabbed it and sprinted towards the police arriving on the scene.

“Iron Man, get Hawkeye up on that building across from the Tower. I want you to keep a lookout and direct those in the air. Thor, you got the lightning, light ‘em up. Falcon, you and Widow are on ground control. We need to prevent as much collateral damage as possible and keep them from entering the buildings. Hill, keep your eyes on everything. I have a feeling we’re going to be fighting more than aliens soon.”

The ground shook as the Hulk took down the whale-beast, tearing it apart singlehandedly.

“And Hulk can keep doing what he’s doing.”

He made it to the policemen, directing orders at them to help keep the civilians off the streets and underground.

_“Hey everyone, it’s Colonel Rhodes. What’d I miss?”_

_“Rhodey! The light of my life, you made it!”_

_“What the… hell is that?”_

_“Just fry anything that isn’t human. Except for the giant green rage monster. He’s on our side, miraculously.”_

“Rhodes, I need you to join Iron Man in patrolling our perimeter. I need to get back into SHIELD. Do you copy?”

_“Roger that, Captain.”_

In the time that it took Steve to make it back to SHIELD Headquarters, at least a dozen new heroes had shown up, and not all were on their side.

_“There’s Daredevil!”_

_“Is that Spideman?”_

_“CAPTAIN MARVEL IS NOT OUR FRIEND. I repeat, someone with superpowers should be helping!”_

_“There goes the Human Torch! He just tried to burn me alive, so not friendly, and probably does bode well for the rest of the Fantastic Four!”_

“I know this may be difficult, but try not to hurt anyone who belongs on Earth unless they’re Hydra!” Steve cautioned as he sprinted up the steps of SHIELD. A strong sense of déjà vu struck him, and he just knew this wasn’t going to end well.

He slowly entered the 68th floor, creeping down the dim hallways. The lack of people made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end, knowing they were expecting him.

He turned into the open space before Pierce’s office, and there stood Bucky, clearly waiting for him.

Steve swallowed before he strode into the space in his uniform from WWII, stopping mere meters from Bucky.

“People are gonna die, Buck. I can’t let that happen.”

Bucky did not react.

“I can help you. I did before.”

Bucky slightly lowered his head rolled to the balls of his feet.

“Please don’t make me do this,” Steve begged. He took a deep breath and threw his shield.

Bucky deflected with his metal arm and took out guns as Steve charged forward, launching into a spinning kick and kicked the gun out of Bucky’s hand. He grabbed his shield just in time to deflect a punch from the metal arm, the _clang_ of it echoing around the room.

 _“Cap, we really need your help out here,”_ Sam said. _“There are too many of them!”_

They kicked and punched and dodged — Steve tried to stay mostly on the defensive as Bucky went in for the kill, his moves brutal and fatal, managing to clip Steve’s side again with a bullet. Steve shoved him hard with his shield and ran into Pierce’s office.

 _“Could you hurry it up with getting their souls back please?”_ Clint asked.

He just managed to rip the portrait of the wall to reveal the extra door before Bucky caught up, and Steve ducked to miss a metal punch to the head. Bucky’s hand got stuck in the wall and he kicked at Steve to launch him into Pierce’s desk. Steve rolled over and Bucky pulled his arm out, flicking a knife in his other hand.

His team kept naming more heroes that had come out of the woodwork, most of them unfriendlies, and Steve had to hurry lest they be completely run over.

They collided again and this time Bucky managed to steal his shield, tossing it into the wall behind him. He came at Steve who caught his fist before the knife could pierce his eye and it stuck in the drywall, Bucky slicing it open like paper in his quest to get to Steve’s head. Steve flipped them, smacking his palm against Bucky’s solar plexus to stun him then roundhouse kicking him in the stomach.

With two steps Steve was back the portrait, quickly sticking the bomb on the door handle and arming it before Bucky chucked the shield and hit him in the back.

The shield bounced away and Steve took the punch to the head because it meant the bomb wouldn’t be destroyed. He flew into the windows, his head cracking against the glass. Bucky came at him again, and Steve only able to barely deflecting the ruthless onslaught.

He counted down the seconds, letting Bucky beat on him until two seconds were left on the timer and he tackled Bucky to the ground just before the blast went off.

Bucky surprised him with a gunshot to the shoulder and rolled them over but Steve hooked his legs around his waist and his arm around his neck, pinning the metal the arm down.

“Stop it!” Steve said through gritted teeth as he continued to cut off Bucky’s air supply.

Finally Bucky went limp, and Steve pushed him away before grabbing his shield and running towards the extra room.

There he entered into another posh and unnecessarily decadent safe room. It was easy to see the pieces of souls — they had been collected in jars and were on display along the walls.

On first estimated there were well over two hundred. Steve felt thick satisfaction taking his shield and smashing up the jars.

There were disagreements on how to actually do this. Another bomb was suggested, but they weren’t sure if soul pieces could be destroyed, so they couldn’t risk it unless it was a last resort. Fortunately this worked just as well, and the pieces scattered back to their respective bodies.

He kept an eye out for a star, any star, but none fit the description from Bucky’s tale. _Pierce must have it,_ Steve thought wildly. At least his team could report that the heroes were being released from Pierce’s control.

“I’ve gotten about half of — _AH!”_

He heard the gunshot before he felt it, but he stuttered forward, when he finally did. He collapsed against the wall in pain, the blood soaking through his front. His team shouted in his ear for his status as he looked up as Bucky stalked into the room, no doubt the finish the job.

Ready as he may be to accept the consequences, he couldn’t leave others to suffer due to his failures. This called for the last resort and he threw the grenade into the other half of the room.

Safe rooms were built to withstand grenades, not contain one, and the whole wall facing the outside blew out, leaving a gaping hole into the floors below and the outside.

The blast threw Bucky against the wall, cracking his head against it, and he slumped to the floor.

His team was yelling in his ear, but he couldn’t have them be distracted from the invasion because they were worrying about him.

“I — ne, the — oms —aged —” he said, purposefully cutting out his words. “Ke — oing!”

He took the earpiece from his ear and crushed it in his palm. His body ached from new wounds and old, and he hauled himself back up. There was one thing he hadn’t tried yet.

Bucky glared at him, breathing heavy, but nothing had changed. None of his soul had come back. Well, what had Natasha said? The pieces follow the heart?

“Bucky,” he gasped, arm crossing his front. “I’m sorry I couldn’t find your heart. I’m sorry I failed you.”

Bucky growled, leaping up and punching Steve down. The both collapsed — he could see the blood on his head where Bucky had hit the wall.

“I’m not gonna fight you,” he said.

He took off his helmet, not wanting anything between them.

“I can’t give you your heart, but I can give you mine.”

 _“Shut up!”_ Bucky yelled, striking him in the face again. Steve could feel the huge bruises begin to form along his cheek and jaw.

“I love you, James Buchanan Barnes—”

Bucky lunged out and tackled Steve, Steve’s head landing over the side of the gaping hole, the broken floor digging into the wounds in his back.

“Shut up!” Bucky yelled again and reared back to punch him in the face, his human hand bracing against Steve’s chest.

“—I always have—”

Bucky cut him off with a punch.

“—and I always will—”

And Bucky punched him again, and again, and again.

Steve breathed in shakily as Bucky paused, fist held high for the next punch. Steve could barely see him through his swollen eyes, his broken jaw unwilling to cooperate for a moment.

“—’cause ’m… I’m with you t… til the end of the line.”

Bucky let his fist land, finally knocking Steve completely unconscious.

He gasped for breath, staring down unbelievingly at the man beneath him, his face purple and swollen, the blue of his uniform stained red with his blood, and yet he used his last breath to tell the soldier that he _loved him_.

He had to finish his mission, but something stayed his body, and he continued to crouch over the body of the Captain, captivated by his words and his actions. After a moment he felt something in his right palm, the one on the Captain’s chest. When he turned his hand up, he saw a bright red star.

The next second it slammed into the soldier’s chest, sending him flying across the room.

And he _screamed._

~*~

Clint was a lot of things, okay, and he'll be the first to admit that maybe he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed when compared to people like Nat and Tony and he wasn't the best at planning when compared to the likes of Fury and Cap, but he was far from _stupid._

(Technically the argument was still out of that one, but he didn't mean to digress.)

Anyway. He knew that Cap wasn't fine or probably anything close to the sort. So he caught a ride from Captain Marvel (he'll have to thank Cap for freeing her soul right before she incinerated him) and started climbing down the stairs of SHIELD Headquarters.

Maria had to help him avoid the fallout. Apparently the non-Hydra agents of SHIELD had answered Cap’s call, if just out of vengeance and necessity if nothing else, and there were shootouts every other floor. The STRIKE team was currently holding the World Security Council hostage, but Clint was not about to bust in on that party without someone like Thor for backup.

This whole thing was a crapshoot. So Steve had been right that when people were freed they would help fight, but they were fighting _wounded._ It’s not like all of them were like Thor and could discount their soul becoming whole again as a bee sting. And the aliens and alien-murder-whales kept pouring out of the sky, leaving them severely outnumbered.

Thor had flown over to Stark Tower to beat up Loki, but couldn't find a way to break up the force field surrounding the Tesseract. Loki had disappeared again, no doubt watching the ensuing chaos and murder with glee. He did not expect his day to go like this at all.

So he continued down the steps (what he wouldn't give for Cap’s stamina or Sam's wings) and finally made it too the 68th floor.

Fight in buildings was literally his least favorite thing to do besides going to the dentist. He just didn't like close combat, hence his bow. He could see better from a distance. And he especially didn't like it when he might come across Captain America's body.

Still breathing body, he corrected. As long as the body was still breathing they could deal with whatever else happened.

He crept around corners - he'd never seen this place so empty before - with his bow up. He could feel the breeze and smell the smoke from the bomb and beyond that, he could hear groaning.

He flexed his fingers gripping the bow, and stepped silently through Pierce's office.

The secret door was blown apart, the walls around it burnt. The rest of the place was completely trashed; the desk broken in half, dents in the wall (a few distinctly shield shaped) with a long sliced through the drywall. The sheer amount of blood smears in different places worried Clint, which he knew Steve's back hadn't healed completely from the glass. He'd never seen anyone so indifferent to so much blood loss, but he supposed that much shock to a system could do it.

He peeked with his camera phone around the door to prevent any surprise knives to the face, but he needn't have worried.

The small pained groaning was coming from the Winter Soldier, who lay curled up on the floor next to a pile of vomit. Steve lay opposite, his body still and bloody, too far over the edge for Clint's liking.

“If he's dead I will shoot you. If he's still breathing we'll talk.”

The Winter Soldier - or Sergeant Barnes, he wasn't sure - didn't react and stayed where he was Clint walked around him, giving him a wide berth, and reached down to check Steve's pulse.

Still beating. A little too light and fast, his breath a little too shallow, but Clint will take it.

“Looks like we're talking.” Clint sighed and put his arrow back in his quiver. “I'm assuming you got your heart back, of Cap would be fully dead instead of half-dead. Do you remember who you are?”

He mumbled something into the floor, which Clint couldn't hear.

“What?”

“He should have just killed me!” he spat, lifting his head enough to glare at Clint. “Go ahead. Finish what he couldn't.”

“As tempting as that is, I'm gonna pass. You see, I need you to help me keep him not-dead.”

 _“What's their location?”_ Sam asked. _“I'll come to you.”_

“Hold on,” Clint said into his coms then addressed Barnes’ uncomprehending stare. “You see Steve here is like well over two hundred pounds of supersoldier muscle. And that's awesome for him! But it fucking sucks for someone to have to carry him. You get me?”

Barnes didn't reply.

“That's why I need you to carry him. We need to get him out of here and to our healer so we can make sure he stays not-dead. I've seen you throw him across the room, I'm sure carrying him wouldn't be a problem.”

“No.”

“No? Really? That's your answer? Steve would have died for you and you can't even help me make sure he doesn't? You can't really want him to die, can you?”

Barnes didn't answer, resting his head against the floor.

“Well I'm not gonna make that choice for you. This is up to you. Either you let him die here, or you pick him up and make sure he doesn't.”

 _“You're issuing a lot of faith here, pal,”_ Tony said over the coms. _“Don't actually let him die.”_

Barnes stared at Clint like he couldn't believe him either, his eyes flicking to Steve's still body. It seemed to take ages, but Barnes slowly pulled himself off the floor onto unsteady feet. He took a deep breath and on his first step got hit in the back of his foot, flipping him over onto his back.

He screamed in pain, clutching his leg, and Clint could only feel sympathy. If it felt like his ankle had broken because his soul piece had been apart for a few weeks, he couldn't imagine what it felt like it coming back after _seventy years._

Despite the pain, or maybe because of it, Barnes rolled back onto his feet. It seemed easier now, his movements more sure.

“C’mon,” he grunted, kneeling by Steve and scooping him up into his arms, “I'm not about to let this dumbass kick the bucket yet.”

Clint grinned and grabbed his bow. “You lead the way!”

Which wasn't exactly true, since actually Maria led the way. They (meaning Clint, since Barnes had his hands full at the moment) busted up two standoffs and freed about a few dozen hostages on their way down, so on a normal day Clint would be feeling pretty good about himself. But this was not a normal day, because he stepped outside, and there were aliens on hoverboards flying over them.

Barnes stopped dead. “What the fuck?” he asked softly.

“Yeah, aliens. Portal to space. Feel free to shoot at will.”

The desperate look Barnes gave him begged him to be kidding. Clint shrugged and shot an alien out of the sky without turning his head.

“Anyway, we should get going.”

There wasn’t really a good place to meet Sam, since nearly everywhere was overrun with aliens, but they ducked into the back of a 7-Eleven and hoped for the best. Sam was just a moment behind.

“I can’t believe I’m healing Captain fucking America next to a cart full of beef jerky and tourist key chains,” he muttered, but moved to start checking him over, hands glowing a warm orange.

 _“This isn’t gonna mean anything unless we shut down that portal,”_ Natasha said.

 _“Well I’d love to do just that, but that thing is pretty indestructible,”_ Tony said.

 _“I’ve got an idea,”_ she said. _“But I’m gonna need backup.”_

“Got it,” he said. “Barnes, you’re up.”

Barnes didn’t seem to hear him, staring dead at Steve.

“Is he… is he gonna be okay?” he asked.

Sam looked up, studying him. “Yeah,” he said. “I mean you certainly did a number on him, but he’ll be okay. If only because he’s too stubborn to die.”

The joke fell flat on Barnes’ ears, eyes too intense and face too pale. Sam stood up and stepped over to Barnes, who flinched away. Sam held up his hands in a placating gesture.

“What are you doing?” Barnes snapped. “Heal him!”

“Okay, but he’s not fighting any time soon,” Sam said. “If you’re going go back out there, you gotta be feeling your best.”

Despite the distrust written in every bone of Barnes’ body, he let Sam get closer. He squeezed his eyes shut when Sam took hold of his shoulder, and flinched when he popped it back into place. The glow of his hands seeped into the muscle, soothing the pain away.

Sam backed off to give Barnes space, who slowly opened his eyes again. He blinked, rotating his arm to test it out.

“You’ve been in so much pain for so long,” Sam explained, and settled back down next to Steve again. “I’d like to take away as much of it as I can.”

Bucky stared for a moment before something struck him in the palm and threw him across the room, crashing into boxes of chips and bottles of pop.

“Shit,” Sam said, and he and Clint ran over to help.

They heaved him back up, dazed and probably in too much pain to process it all. Sam was surprised he hadn’t passed out yet. He stumbled, breathing heavy, clutching his right palm.

“Sorry, but there’s not much I can do for that one.”

He nodded in understanding, but they weren’t sure how much he actually knew. As he recovered from the brutal ache of being pieced back together, they filled him in as best and as quickly as they could about the current situation.

“You… you said I’m up?” he asked Clint.

“Yeah, you know, I don’t know—”

He shook out his palm. “Where?”

Clint looked at Sam for help, who shrugged. “You’re the one who gave the option to choose.”

“Oh so this is my fault?” Clint sighed. “Widow, where do you need backup?”

_“SHIELD. I’m going after Pierce.”_

“How do you feel about going after Pierce?” he asked Barnes, whose answering murderous face said it all. “Then go back to the SHIELD building. Black Widow will meet you there.”

Barnes nodded, sparing a glance at Steve.

“If he’s dead by the time I come back,” he muttered darkly. “There won’t be a place you can hide.”

“We got him,” Sam promised. “Go.”

He didn’t trust them, not even a little, but he had no choice. He turned and ran out of the store and into the chaos that was Manhattan.

It had been a long time since he’d been in New York. It’d been before everything, before the war, back when he’d been a poor Brooklyn kid named Bucky trying to keep another poor Brooklyn kid named Steve alive and fed. The city towered over him, the buildings imposing and everything and nothing at all like he remembered. The amount of memories that had been crammed into his head at once was too much to process and he staggered down the street, unable to comprehend what he was seeing. It was too much to think of what happened, let alone trying to find his way through this mess. Aliens? This couldn’t be real. Nothing about this could be real.

Breaking glass and a shout drew his attention — a body flung from the SHIELD building and he didn’t even think, he sprinted forward. The person released a grappling hook but couldn’t stick into the smooth glass and they were _falling_ —

He leapt forward and just managed to catch her, his body taking the brunt of her momentum. They landed hard on the ground and she rolled away. He stayed down, the wind completely knocked out of him. The blonde woman groaned, slowly picking herself back up while he tried to do the same. He made it as far as his knees.

“Thanks, I thought I was dead meat there for a…” Her dark eyes widened. _“You!”_

He couldn’t move in time to dodge the kick to the head, but he rolled away from the second blow. He backed up and frantically stumbled to his feet, unsure if this is what Hawkeye meant he was supposed to meet the Black Widow.

“Whoa! Whoa there lady!”

A red human shaped robot flew in between and he had no idea what to expect anymore.

“Move Stark,” she said, pulling out a gun. “He killed Fury and took souls of my friends!”

“And normally I am all for vengeance! Fuck that Yoda-crap of letting go of your anger. Except not this time. Who are you?”

“Agent 13, Sharon Carter with SHIELD Special Forces. Now _move_.”

“Mm, no can do. You wouldn’t happen to be missing a piece of your soul, would you? Or be secretly working for Hydra?”

Her gun did not waver. “I’m following the Captain’s orders. And that means taking out Hydra agents.”

“Okay, let’s think about this real hard. See this guy? This guy’s James Buchanan Barnes.”

Sharon reared back in surprise, ducking around Stark to get a better look.

“You might know him as Cap’s dead best friend Bucky who’s actually not dead, because guess what, he’s been used as a soulless sock puppet by Hydra. Now, dear old Cap just found this out, along with the fact that they took not just one, but _seven_ pieces of his soul. Over _seventy years._ I don’t know about you, but I really wouldn’t want to be the one to put a bullet in his head after Cap and us went through all the trouble of trying to get his soul back. Especially not after he just saved your ass. Nice catch, by the way.”

Sharon swallowed, lowering her gun. “Nice to meet you, Sergeant Barnes. Heard a lot about you.”

Barnes stared at the ground and clenched his jaw.

“Thank you. Now, it’s time to get Cap’s tin soldier home.”

“Right. I’ll save these bullets for those who actually deserve it. Besides, I have a few Hydra assholes to give a piece of my mind.”

She headed back towards the building, hesitating next to Barnes. “Thanks for, you know. And good luck.” And then she was gone.

“Okay, now to get tall, dark, and murderous up to the 83rd floor. Fortunately I can give you a ride, no need to thank me, and—”

“She was right,” Barnes interrupted.

“Oh boy.”

“I’m not worth all this,” he continued. “I’m not his friend. Not anymore. Not after everything… even if I got my soul back, I’m not gonna be what he knew. And he’s got…” He gestured a little helplessly. “Robot friends and friends who can fly, and I—”

“And I’m gonna stop you right there. First off, not a robot.”

The faceplate popped up and Bucky stared at the face of Howard Stark with a goatee.

“Hi, I’m Tony, you knew my dad, moving past that now and cutting to the point. Steve needs you.”

Barnes shook his head, but Tony plowed on, stepping up to him.

“You have no idea, do you? You should have seen his face when he realized what they’d done to you. I had to listen to him blame himself for everything you went through, and had no idea what to say. Can you imagine? Me! Not knowing what to say! And I could tell, too, he had no desire to go through with this before. He didn’t want to be a Hero. I guess you could even say he had no heart in it.

“And then you appeared, and I swear Steve was about to tear apart everyone in SHIELD personally. With his bare hands if he had to. And I get it! I do! I thought, you know, at the beginning, we had nothing in common. He was all ‘big speeches and following the rules’ and I’m ‘fun times and drunk times.’ Except now I see it. We’d both do anything for our friends. And so this is me, doing anything for my friend by helping his long lost brainwashed assassin buddy, because if someone had taken my best friend from me like that… well. Let’s just say the aliens are causing enough destruction right now.”

Tony put a hand on Barnes’ shoulder.

“He needs you so much, especially now. And you need him. And please, _please_ don’t make me watch him lose you again. I don’t think anyone could bare that.”

Barnes swallowed hard, his breaths shaky and his eyes wet.

“I don’t want to lose him again either,” he said, and got pile-drive’d in the stomach by the fourth piece of his soul. Tony rubbed his back while he vomited up bile, saying he’d been there.

It took a few minutes before Barnes could stand back on his feet, and a few more before he was ready for Tony to fly him up to the 83rd floor.

By that time, the Black Widow had already reached the floor, and was in position to take down the STRIKE team and Pierce. On her mark, Tony blasted the windows and threw Barnes through them.

The Widow and the Sergeant made quick work of the STRIKE team, the leaders of the World Security Council backing up to allow them space. Together they turned on Pierce, who stood watching the display with narrowed eyes.

“Well isn’t this a sight. The Black Widow and the Winter Soldier working side-by-side of their own free will. Tell me, soldier, how does it feel to remember everything you did? There’s a lot of blood on those hands.”

He scowled. “My name is Bucky.”

Pierce chuckled. “Is it? Are you really able to call yourself that? After everything?”

“Don’t listen to him,” the Black Widow murmured at his side. “We need to provoke him into calling the scepter.”

“Oh, is that all,” he drawled and lunged at Pierce.

Pierce threw of a force field, blocking him out. “I’m sorry, you’ll have to try harder than that.”

He snapped his fingers, but nothing happened. He snapped them again and a new man in green appeared behind him with the scepter, who shoved it into Pierce’s stomach.

The Widow swore in Russian.

“Now, let’s get onto the main act, shall we?” Loki said, a Cheshire grin spreading across his face. “You didn’t really think that I would let this pawn take all the credit for my discourse, would you? No, I am the true destined ruler over you! Now kneel!”

They stayed standing, even the leaders in the back of the room, everyone except Natasha wondering if he was serious. Bucky was also wondering why he chose to wear a golden helmet with giant curved horns on it of his own volition, but that seemed like a less important detail at the moment.

“I said _kneel_ and witness my true glory as your ru—”

“LOKI!” Thor called from outside, diving head first into the room and tackling Loki, tearing through walls all the way to the other side of the building.

“Right on time,” the Widow said. “At least he was nice enough to leave his scepter.”

She strode to it, picking it up, before handing it to him.

“Here, take this. It should be able to bypass the barrier around the Tesseract and close the portal.”

Bucky looked down at the scepter and then back at her.

“You’re kidding.”

“No, I’m _trusting._ ”

Bucky shook his head. “It should be you, Black Widow.”

“Another time, maybe,” she said. “But this isn’t my Story. Just know that if you fuck this up, I won’t be happy.”

She grinned wolfishly, showing all her teeth, her threat heard loud and clear.

“And call me Natasha.”

Bucky nodded, only managing to lay a hand on the scepter before the fifth piece of his soul punched him in the back. Natasha sidestepped and avoided being crashed into, and Bucky landed face first on the floor.

By the time Thor came back, Bucky was unsteady but back on his feet, adrenaline the only thing keeping him remotely upright.

“Loki has escaped back to the Tower,” Thor said, roughed up and bleeding from one side. “Come, friend of Rogers, let us do glorious battle!”

He grabbed Bucky’s arm, leaving Bucky no time to protest, and flew them across Manhattan to Stark Tower.

The sight left Bucky in awe. He watched as alien after alien was taken down by all sort of people that made Thor look normal.

Too soon they reached the Tower before Bucky could take in everyone fighting. They crashed into one of the top floors, which was much bigger and colder than it had any right to be.

Two huge, looming creatures made of ice guarded the Tesseract, and Bucky thought that this would be the best time for him to leave, Natasha’s warning be damned.

Thor grabbed him by the jacket.

“Come! We must defeat these Frost Giants to stop this invasion!”

Thor seemed positively gleeful at the prospect, which confirmed Bucky’s suspicion that he was crazy.

“I can’t!” he said, shaking his head. The cold seeped into his bones and he thought of years suspended in ice, the terror of being unable to move as it killed him slowly, the frost fogging up the window and cutting out any sort of light, the knowledge that he was destined to suffer this fate over and over and over again, because no one cared, no one would ever come for him, he deserved this torture for everything he did—

“Good Sergeant!” Thor said, grasping his shoulder and shaking him.

Bucky seized up, breathing in short insufficient gasps, his body shaking as he cowered away from the cold and Thor’s big hands.

“You will not face this terror alone,” Thor promised.

“I can’t do it. I’m too afraid. Even if I — even if I get my soul, Steve’s going to realize that I—”

“That you have suffered a great deal, and that you will blame him for their actions.”

Bucky jerked his head to stare at Thor.

“I have seen his worst fear, good Sergeant, and it is that you will hate him. I cannot promise that you will be the same, or that this will be easy. I can only promise that you will be brave enough to face it.”

“I am too afraid. I can’t.”

“A wise man once said to me, that bravery is not action without fear. It is action _despite_ fear. So come, good Sergeant, let us go and face your fear.”

He took a deep breath and nodded, gripping the scepter tighter.

“You ever heard the story of David and Goliath?”

The fact that he expected to be hit with a piece of his soul didn’t make getting smacked face down into the ground any less painful.

Thor hauled him up and they dove straight into battle, the Frost Giants large but slow, and they scuttled around their feet, blasting straight through their legs to bring them down. The bigger they are, the harder they fall, anyway.

Except unlike Goliath, they reformed. “Go!” Thor called. “I will take care of them!”

Bucky ran up the stairs, only to be cut off by Loki. He dodged magical blast after magical blast, but he was running out of steam. There was no way he’d be able to keep this up, his body and soul too beaten and worn down by the abuse of the last seventy years.

Fortunately his savior appeared in the form of a giant green rage monster.

He burst through the floor, startling both Loki and Bucky, roaring loud enough to shake the windows.

“You monster! How dare you challenge me! I am a God! You are nothing more than an ant to be squished underneath my boot, no deserving of any kindness or—”

The Hulk grabbed him by the feet, smashing him back on the ground like a ragdoll.

“HULK — IS — NO — MONSTER!” he yelled, giving Loki one more good smash before stalking off. “Puny God,” he scoffed, before jumping out the window.

“Uh, thanks?” Bucky said to the empty room. He didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth and ran past to the roof, where he came face to face with the portal and the Tesseract itself.

“Well, here goes nothing,” Bucky said as he stabbed the scepter into the barrier, dispelling it completely.

“No!” someone yelled, and Bucky looked back in shock as Pierce appeared behind him. “You will give me the Tesseract!”

Bucky had no idea how he was standing, although it looked like the stomach wound had at least ceased bleeding, although he was sure he and Natasha had left him for dead a few minutes ago.

“Even if you close that portal, the aliens will not leave!” Pierce said. “You can’t do anything right, you worthless piece of scum. You’re a traitor to the one person you cared about most. You would have killed him without a second thought! You’re nothing but a _monster._ ”

Bucky could feel the familiar pull, the urge to _obey,_ and he grit his teeth.

“You don’t have my pieces, you cannot control me.”

“Oh, but I do,” he said, smiling. “After all this time, you cannot resist this. Come, step down from there like a good little soldier, and follow orders.”

“No!”

“No?” he asked, face turning ugly. He held out his hand, and to Bucky’s horror he couldn’t move his body and had to fight against leaving the Tesseract. “You will come to me, and you will leave that portal alone!”

“I will close it, whether you like it or not!”

“Then you will die!”

Rage bubbled up and a burst of renewed strength sang through him.

“Then I will die knowing that I was loved!” he said, pulling his feet backwards towards the Tesseract and against Pierce’s control. “I will die knowing that I saved others, that I helped my friends who trusted me to do so, and be brave enough to admit that _you_ are the monster, not me!”

The last of Bucky’s soul smacked him in the forehead, and he used the momentum to propel him toward the Tesseract, stabbing it down with his left hand into the center of the cube, which exploded into a bright, white light.

~*~

This light burst throughout Manhattan, spreading in a huge shockwave outwards and upwards. The beam blasted straight into the portal, incinerating the Chitauri home base. The Chitauri still on earth shut down, crashing out of the sky. The shockwave powered through anyone else still in the air, striking them down and letting them fall.

Fortunately enough high-powered folks were able to catch them, like the Hulk catching Tony and Spiderman webbing Rhodes before he could smack into the ground.

Hulk, Natasha, and Clint all gathered around Tony, whose suit was out for the second time in less than 24 hours.

“Holy shit guys, did we do it? I think we did it. What the fuck. Holy shit. Good work team!” Tony said.

“Um, wasn’t that bright beam of light where Barnes was?” Clint asked.

“Oh,” Tony said. “Oh shit. We should go check on him. Shit. Someone help me up.”

~*~

Bucky breathed, well, could barely breath past his broken ribs, slowly coming to. His head pounded and the rest of his body was just one giant ache. Dust settled in his mouth and he coughed, the action shaking his body back into awareness. He groaned, knowing he had to get up, but unable to remember why at the moment.

“You… you ruined everything!”

Bucky’s eyes flew open. He knew that voice.

Pierce staggered, somehow still alive for some ungodly reason, and leaned against the wall of the roof. Bucky pulled himself up and overbalanced— his left arm was completely shattered, only the shoulder piece remaining.

He didn’t have time to process this, as Pierce threw a magical blast it him, and he flew of the roof onto Tony Stark’s landing pad twenty feet below.

Bucky rolled out of the wall so Pierce would land on him as he came down, nearly as winded and out of power as Bucky. Still Pierce came at him, and Bucky could only stumble backwards back into the Tower, no fight left in him, unsure how he managed to survive thus far.

“I don’t believe this,” another voice came up from behind him, and oh, of course, how could he forget Loki? “How were my plans foiled by a mere mortal? You will die slowly and painfully for what you have done!”

Bucky backed up now, with both Pierce and Loki advancing. He couldn’t win this time.

Thor came flying up through the broken floor. “Loki, brother, that is enough!”

He swung his hammer, his aim true, and knocked Loki to the ground. “That is enough. You will come home to Asgard and you will be tried for your crimes against Midgard.”

Then he set his hammer on Loki’s chest, and satisfied, he stepped up beside Bucky to face Pierce.

The Hulk came next, Natasha riding on his shoulders, just before Tony came flying through with Clint. They too took place beside Bucky.

“I cannot believe you would stand by a traitor,” Pierce snapped. “I was offering control and peace! And you choose to destroy everything instead! You will regret this. Hydra has not been beaten! It never will be! Cut off one head, and two more will—”

The red, white, and blue shield came soaring through the open windows and struck Pierce, throwing him to the ground and knocking him out cold.

Sam and Steve followed shortly after, Steve catching the shield easily as Sam set them both on the ground. He staggered a little, and had to lean on Sam, but he was there and real and alive.

“I know I couldn’t have been the only one who was tired of hearing him talk.”

Steve’s eyes found Bucky’s, standing for the first time in nearly seventy years as two whole men.

And Bucky promptly fainted.

He dropped like deadweight to the floor, everything finally catching up to him and his body unable to handle to strain.

“Bucky!”

Steve left Sam’s side to kneel beside him, gently turning him over on his back. He checked for a pulse, and finding one, nearly collapsed beside him in relief. He gathered Bucky in his arms, and hung his head, unable to speak past the lump in his throat or see through the tears in his eyes.

“Aw, but what about true love’s first kiss?” Clint asked.

Natasha punched in the arm.

“Ow! What was that for? It’s only obvious that Bucky’s Steve’s Happily Ever After.”

Thor, knowing both of their fears, shushed him.

“C’mon Cap,” Sam said, kneeling beside him. “Let’s get you both some rest.”

Steve could only nod. They had so much cleanup to do, after the fall of SHIELD and the Chitauri attack, but Steve could only think about laying next to Bucky and never getting up.

If Bucky would want him after this, of course.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm agentrainycarter on tumblr!!


	7. Epilogue aka This Some Gay Shit Right Here

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and of course many thanks to my wonderful artist rancorousdrawer on tumblr!!!!!!!!! art posted in the first chapter but here's the link again:
> 
> http://rancorousdrawer.tumblr.com/post/149660561661/but-they-didnt-tell-us-what-we-lost-of-heroes

Tony had been bugging them about a party for weeks, and despite numerous and hearty protests, he went and threw a birthday bash-slash-Fourth of July-slash-We Saved the World party.

“It’s a celebration! People only turn 96 once, and usually they aren’t in as great shape as you are.”

Steve knew what Tony was doing. He was trying to cheer him up, since Bucky hasn’t woken up since New York, and in these past seven weeks Steve had hardly left Bucky’s bedside. (Of course, for the first two, he’d been in a hospital bed all his own.) He’d only leave when Sam and Natasha bully him to take a shower or go for a run, or try to get some ‘real’ sleep.

Whatever that meant. Steve hadn’t felt fully rested in years, his superserumed body always at odds with the little guy still inside. His body could continue, but his mind dragged him down.

Still. He didn’t want to have a party. Tony threw one anyway, to Steve’s chagrin, in the large manor he had in the Hamptons that he was kind enough to let Steve and Bucky stay in, which meant the rest of the team was here too. Steve even convinced himself that he wouldn’t go until the day of, when Pepper found him this morning just after his run and turned the guilt trip up to eleven.

It was clear why Pepper was such a good businesswoman. No one could say no to her.

And now he found himself, much later, out on one of the balconies outside of the huge ballroom. Not that the party was too formal by any means, but it felt like Tony had invited half of New York to fill the mansion. Everyone who had fought in the battle was welcome, so it led to odd conversation partners the likes between Squirrel Girl and Mister Fantastic, Spiderwoman and Power Man, She-Hulk and Elektra. Steve had tried to escape into the kitchens, but he found Deadpool flipping hundreds of pancakes while rapping along to some female hip-hop star, so he slowly backed out before he was noticed.

(The only one suspiciously absent was Fury, but a dead man showing up to a party would ruin the secrecy.)

The balcony was his safe place while Tony tried to rile people up to do karaoke before fireworks. He was only three stories up and could easily jump down if the need arose. And he seriously considered it, since he hadn’t been around Bucky all day.

As soon as Pepper left him that morning, Tony had found him, insisting that Steve come to see what improvements he’d made on Steve’s shield. Steve hesitated, but curiosity won out, especially since Tony swore he hadn’t added any guns to the shield. So Steve texted Sam saying he’d be a little late. After Sam’s assurance Bucky was fine, he followed Tony.

And Tony suitably impressed him, presenting him with armbands that linked up to his shield, pulling them together like magnets. His shield would now fly to him much like Mjolnir to Thor, and he couldn’t begrudge such an advantage like that in battle. So he talked strategy to Tony for a while, before he checked the time and decided to get on with his day. He had a lot planned, after all. Sitting next to Bucky’s still form and getting lost in his head took a lot out of him.

Except Sharon Carter found him on his way there, insisting that they do breakfast. Steve’s too polite to refuse, and, well, he _was_ hungry after his run. They sat much longer than he intended to and he’s actually surprised by how much they had in common. After learning that Peggy was her great aunt and discussing a bit of how much she meant to both of them, they regaled stories of their time in battle to each other. It was different than discussing it with WWII vets who had been there, but also different than someone whose only frame of reference were dusty files and textbooks. Sharon had Peggy’s wit and spice, but with a flavor all her own, and Steve found it refreshing.

So when he looked at the clock and found it nearly noon, he balked. He apologized, saying that he had to run off, but that they should do it again sometime. He found he really meant it and hoped he’d found a true friend in Sharon.

Just after he’d sent an apology text to Sam and promised to be there right away, Natasha had stepped out in front of him, looking him up and down.

“You don’t think you’re _actually_ going to the party like that, do you?” she had said and blocked his path when he tried to stride around her. He turned only to find Maria with a predatory glint in her eye, and both women hooked their arms through his, leading him the opposite way of Bucky’s room. He complained and moaned the entire time, but one did not simply say no to Nat and Maria on a mission, and he was forced to follow. It took ages (but actually only about two hours) to go to a few stores and pick out what they called the perfect outfit, along with some other things to “update his wardrobe.”

“Seriously Steve, no one could say no to you with the way that shirt makes your biceps look,” Maria had said with a sly grin.

“Or with how your ass looks in those pants,” Nat agreed.

Steve had smoothed a palm down his face and begged to go back.

Only to be blocked _again_ by Rhodes, who said he was bringing up some food for Dr. Banner, and wouldn’t Steve like to come along and say hello? Steve cursed his ingrained politeness and headed off to the labs. He’d met Bruce after the alien attack, and the Hulk had finally passed out, leaving a small 5’8” man with dark curly hair in his wake. Bruce was mild-mannered and quiet, having been forced to learn to control his anger after what he called ‘the Incident’. Steve didn’t pry too much into it, but he was nice enough to talk to.

He finally slipped away after an hour, promising to seem them both at the party.

“Captain!” Thor boomed down the hallways and Steve sighed, vowing to himself that he wouldn’t be derailed just like before. Except Thor proposed sparring, and well, Steve did want to practice with his new armbands for his shield, and blowing off a little steam did sound good, and according to Nat, Bucky was still asleep, hadn’t even noticed he was gone, so he found himself in the training rooms with Thor.

Both were taken by surprise when Thor slammed his hammer down onto Steve’s shield and it created a shockwave that shattered the windows. Thor looked at Steve with a slow growing and slightly manic grin, and, well, Steve was never known for playing it safe.

(So that move was pretty awesome and he couldn’t wait to use it in battle. He didn’t actually have to admit it out loud.)

By the time they were both out of breath and appropriately tired, it was well after five in the evening. The party itself had started at four, but Steve had promised to show up around seven, and Steve needed time to get ready and check on Bucky. He hurriedly showered and made his way back to Bucky’s room, when Clint barreled into him.

He was in his undershirt and sweatpants, both covered in what looked like coffee stains, trying to hold up his pants since the string had broken. He had a toothbrush in his mouth and just one sock on. With only half of his hair was slathered in gel, he had the look of someone who was trying to get his shit together but couldn’t quite manage it. A golden retriever stood at his side and wagged his tail at Steve.

“Steve! Thank God — would you take Lucky for walk?” he asked before shoving the leash into Steve’s hand and didn’t give him a chance to protest. “Thanks, you’re a life-saver. He needs to be walked for at least an hour and here’s a tennis ball, he loves playing fetch. I gotta go get ready or Nat’s gonna kill me — see ya!”

“Wait, Clint!”

“Sorry, can’t hear ya!” he called back, pointing to his naked ear, and ran off.

Steve looked after him, and then at Lucky, who grinned and wagged his tail harder when Steve paid attention to him. Steve sighed, and resigned himself to walking Lucky, since he couldn’t very well just leave him. He walked them around the mansion and let him off the leash when they got to the beach. Despite his best efforts he became enamored with the dog, and enjoyed himself much more than he intended to when they played fetch, to the point where he was considering getting himself a dog by the end of it. It would certainly be nice to have someone to come home to who was always happy to see him.

This led his thoughts back to Bucky, and he cringed, the guilt of not having seen him all day catching up with him. It hit especially hard when he looked at the clock and it only a quarter until seven. He whistled at Lucky and they booked it back to the mansion. He dropped Lucky off at Clint’s room, who thanked him and looked marginally more put together than before, and ran to his room. He had to shower again but he’d at least had his outfit put together, deciding it was fine if he was fashionably late. He had to see Bucky before the party.

He stepped out of his room to wolf whistling, and his shoulders slumped when he saw Nat, Maria, and Pepper standing there. Sure enough he found himself corralled against his wishes not to Bucky’s room, but to the party.

“Fashionably late I see!” Tony called to him, pausing just long enough to thrust a champagne glass and a sparkler in his hand before being submerged back into the party.

From there he had to endure endless happy birthday’s and thank you’s — it had been so long since the banquet, and yet here he was, come full circle. At least he knew that these people were all on his side, and he’d always be grateful for their help, but it was just too much.

And thus the balcony. He breathed in the muggy July air, the sky clear and cloudless and perfect for fireworks. Maybe he’d just stay for fireworks, and then ditch. No one would be able to complain then. He even had earplugs so the explosions wouldn’t bother him.

He leaned his elbows on to the balcony and stared out at the expansive yard and at the people who’d spilled out along the beach to prepare for the fireworks. Part of him wondered what was the point, and the rest of him felt guilty that he got to see all of this when Bucky lay still in his bed.

“Looking this sad on your birthday has to be a crime.”

Steve’s heart lodged up into his throat because he _knew that voice_ and he whipped around to see Bucky leaning casually against the doorframe.

The sight of him knocked the breath out of Steve’s lungs. He was dressed in a blue and green plaid button down, which was covered by a navy zip-up jacket despite the heat, the left side neatly pinned. He had on dark, fitted slacks, clean white tennis shoes, and his long hair was combed back into a bun. Steve gaped, he couldn’t help it — the image so jarring and unexpected his brain had a hard time catching up.

“Careful there Steve,” Bucky said, a beginning of a smile touching his lips. “You keep your mouth like that you’ll start catching flies.”

“Bucky,” he breathed, willing his mouth to work. “You — you’re — you—”

Bucky raised one eyebrow, and pushed off the doorframe, the door slipping close behind him. Steve swallowed as he came up and stood to Steve’s left.

“You look good,” Steve finally pushed out. With Bucky’s presence here everything else was forgotten, the party, the scenery, even where they were. Everything came second fiddle to Bucky and Steve couldn’t take his eyes off him.

“I had a little help,” he admitted.

“Oh,” Steve said. “ _That’s_ why everyone tried so hard to distract me all day.”

“It — they said it was for a good cause.”

This close he could see Bucky’s little squint, the slight turndown of his lips, and realized that Bucky was nervous.

“A very good cause,” Steve assured, and ached to reach out to him, but was unsure if Bucky would allow it. “I’m glad you’re here,” he said, because while that only poked at the tip of the ice burg, it at least was a start.

He’d spent hours and days and weeks agonizing about what to say to Bucky and now that the moment was finally here, everything he’d prepared had flown out the window.

“I heard there were fireworks,” he said and shrugged a little. “An’ I thought, couldn’t miss out on that.”

“They were handing out earplugs,” Steve said. “Did you get a pair? Here, you can have mine and I can go—”

“I already got a pair.”

“Oh. Okay. Okay, good, that’s good.”

Silence settled and it turned awkward like it never had before. Too much was bubbling in Steve’s chest, all vying to breach past Steve’s throat and he feared it would all come up at once like word vomit.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do, after this,” Bucky murmured, gazing out at the water.

Steve let out a huff of breath that could almost be mistaken for a chuckle. “You know, people keep asking me that too. And I don’t really know, except that I did promise myself that after the whole thing ended, I’d go on a vacation.”

He looked at Bucky’s profile in the dim evening light and thought no one had ever looked more beautiful.

“I’d been — I’d been putting it off, of course. Just seemed kinda like a waste, going some place nice and not having anyone to share it with.”

Bucky turned to him, face unreadable, and Steve held his breath.

“I don’t know,” he drawled out and looked away. “I don’t think I’m worth all of this, Steve.”

“What happened — that wasn’t you, Buck.”

“Yeah, but I still did it.”

“Then it’s my fault too, for not going after you.”

“Steve, no—”

“You and everyone else can try to assure me it’s not, but it’s true. So much for ‘no man gets left behind’ when I didn’t even try to find your body.”

“I don’t blame you for that,” he said, light blue eyes boring into Steve’s. “I died. I was supposed to stay dead. And for a matter of fact, so were you. And yet, here we are. Different war, different century, but still a party in a Stark mansion.”

“No fondue, though,” Steve said, and felt so proud when Bucky gave him a small smile.

“I thought he was Howard with a goatee,” Bucky admitted and Steve actually laughed. “More talkative, but then again Howard wouldn’t shut up either.”

“You know, he kinda grows on you.”

Silence settled again, but this was easier.

“Fireworks are gonna start soon,” Steve remarked after a few minutes. “Aren’t you hot in that jacket?”

Not that he didn’t appreciate just how good Bucky looked in that jacket, but it was still at least eighty degrees plus humidity, and Steve was sweating in his short-sleeved shirt.

But Bucky shook his head. “Kinda have a hard time feeling warm, anymore.”

Steve touched Bucky’s hand, and his skin was like ice. He frowned and took Bucky’s hand in both of his, breathing on it gently. He glanced up to find Bucky watching him, his head tilted a little like he couldn’t quite believe what was happening.

“I tried to _kill_ you,” he said.

“And yet here we are,” Steve parroted. “Different century, different people, but still together.”

“I have an idea — of, of what we should do,” Bucky blurted. Steve could feel his pulse rise. “And, I guess, it’s really up to you, but I was just thinking, you know? That maybe, especially after what happened, that just maybe, I mean you didn’t get one before, so I thought, maybe… um…”

Steve swallowed as Bucky trailed off, when what Bucky was asking dawned on him. Bucky looked at him a little panicked, his mouth opening and closing a few times, but nothing coming out. Steve didn’t have to think about his answer.

He slid smoothly down to one knee, both hands still gripping Bucky’s, gazing up at Bucky as Bucky stared back down with wide eyes.

“I don’t know much about fate,” Steve started, the words coming to him easily. “But I know a good thing when I see it. I know when something’s worth fighting for. I missed my chance the first time, and I’m truly, truly blessed to get an opportunity to make it right. After everything that happened, after everything that happened to us to make us get here… I want to make sure this goes right. I don’t want to be alone, never did, and I wasted the past few years. I was selfish. I had this whole amazing world right in front of me, full of wonders, and I wanted none of it. Not without my best guy at my side.”

Bucky had gone very pale and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down in his throat. Steve’s palms had gotten sweaty, but he couldn’t — and _wouldn’t_ — back down now.

“I love you, James Buchanan Barnes. I always have, and I always will, until the end of the line. And I would be honored if you would be my Happily Ever After.”

Bucky didn’t speak for several long moments.

“You’re an idiot,” he choked out, sounding suspiciously close to crying. “I just, you know, meant to maybe think about it, you know—”

“ _Think_ about it?” Steve repeated, and stood back up. “I have done nothing _but_ think about it for the past three years, ever since I woke up.”

“I’m different,” he said, his eyes watering. “After everything I did — and don’t argue with me Steve, whether I was in control or not I still _did it_ — and, and I don’t know if I’m ever gonna be like I was before all of this, and I’ll probably have nightmares and be real fucked up because I may be back together but there are probably a _lot_ of cracks in the foundation—”

“Then we’re a perfect a perfect match,” Steve cut him off. “We’re both different. But I think… I hope that even with all our cracks, we’ll still match up perfectly.”

Bucky snorted. “That’s pretty cliché, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, well, _you’re_ the one who woke up from a coma on my birthday. I know how you hate clichés, but it’s true. All of it.”

Steve moved to put one hand on Bucky’s jaw, smooth from a fresh shave. Bucky sniffed, letting Steve move them closer.

“I guess clichés aren’t so bad, y’know, when they’re happening to you,” he murmured, so close now that Steve could feel his breath on his skin.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah… besides, I’ve always wanted to see the Grand Canyon.”

Steve licked his lips, pausing.

“So is that a…”

“ _Yes_ , jesus, o’ course I’m saying yes.”

Steve couldn’t tamper his grin. “So you love me.”

Bucky gave him the most exasperated look. “My heart literally went to you before it went to me. What do you want, me to spell it out for ya?”

“That’s exactly what I want.”

“Then I L-O-V-E Y-O-U,” he literally spelled just to be a little shit. “Now will you man up and kiss me already?”

And Steve closed the distance, finally kissing Bucky after so long, and their hearts sang with joy. They jumped apart when the first firework shot off, laughing at their reactions before put in their earplugs. Tony’s firework display was beautiful, and Steve’s chest was so light and happy that he thought he might just burst with them.

Bucky smiled gently and leaned into Steve’s side, eyes wide in wonder at the beauty. Steve couldn’t help stealing more kisses — on his lips, on his cheeks, his forehead. Bucky was just so kissable, after all.

Eventually Bucky slumped, exhausted just after a short activity. Steve pulled him closed and hugged him tight, promising that _it’s okay, I’ve got you._

Bucky passed out and Steve caught him, so, so gentle with him as he lifted him up. He jumped off the balcony, not running away anymore, but walking to Bucky’s room, laying him carefully on the bed. Bucky did not wake, not even as Steve undressed him to his boxers and laid three blankets on top of him to compensate. Steve then undressed into comfy clothes and settled in his armchair beside the bed, unable to keep the happy grin off his face.

Because Bucky would wake in the morning, and the morning after that, and the morning after that, and for as many mornings as Steve could count, and maybe they wouldn’t all be happy, but they would be together and alive and Steve would let nothing to pull them apart ever again.

And Bucky was right, of course. It wasn’t easy and it’s never as easy as the Tales would lend you to believe. They fought and laughed and cried and loved so much that they could hardly contain it. But they weren’t alone. They had friends and comrades and people who always had their back, no matter what, and Bucky was free to explore and feel everything that had been taken away from him.

This was a family that they had forged together in battle and in blood and together, nothing could take them down.

Steve and Bucky’s wedding and their Happily Ever After, of course, was talk of the town, becoming the most famous Story in recent history.

And people would sing and talk of them for years and years to come, everyone wishing to have a bond as strong as theirs, to be able to last through the centuries and remain so strong that a few simple words could break the curses of evil men.

Bonds so deep surpassed even the worst of tortures, which clung to the very marrow of bones and thread through each and every cell, that laced every breath and sigh, permeating down to the very last atom of their being. Steve and Bucky wouldn’t think about it too much, about their orbit around each other, gravitating towards each other without thought, the easy touches and easier kisses and trust so sure that no one and nothing could shake it, but they knew.

Steve, surrounded by his family, felt finally ready to take on whatever the new century threw at him.

(And they did get a dog, a rescued pit bull, and took her on their trip to the Grand Canyon.)

_And they lived Happily Ever After._

_The End._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm agentrainycarter on tumblr!!!


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